From: Kent Landfield (kent@hypermail.org)
Date: Wed Jul 07 1999 - 20:23:42 CDT
#
# My apologies if this has already been asked...
# but I have read all the documentation I can
# find and didn't see a FAQ anywhere.
#
# Does hypermail have an option to automatically
# sort messages into folder by date? (like
# 1999/jan, 1999/feb, etc.)
#
# I noticed that all of the hypermail archives
# I've seen were set up that way... so I thought
# it might be an option. Are you just doing
# it manually or with a script? If it is a
# script, could I beg a copy?
#
Take a look at the hypermail distributions since 2.x. There you will
find a directory named archive/. The README for the archive directory
utilities follows. Some of this will be integrated into hypermail
proper in the future.
==========================
This directory contains the archive specific information for maintaining
mailing list archives. It is expected that the msg2archive.c functionality
will be added to hypermail in a future release. Until then... This is what
is here and how it works....
README - This file.
1998 - script for recreation of the hypermail archives
from the mailbox version
Makefile.in - configure Makefile input
msg2archive.c - Individual message archiver.
mbox2hypermail.c - Read messages from a mailbox and calls hypermail.
The contents of this directory support automatic generation of hypermail
archives from inbound messages *as well as* the generation of a hypermail
archive from a Unix mailbox of stored messages.
This is how I do it so... Your mileage might vary...
1. First you will need to decide where you want the archive stored at.
2. Then you will need to edit the file lists.h with the appropriate info.
Simply add a section such as is shown below. I have a section for each
list. If you are not familiar with 'C' might want to get someone else
to assist. Notice that HYPERMAIL is different in the two entries. This
is because in the case of the wu-ftpd list, it is using a stock hypermail
executable to save the messages. The nfr-announce list is using a
customized version (very useful for testing too.)
#ifdef WU_FTPD
#define HYPERMAIL "/usr/local/bin/hypermail"
#define ARCHIVE "/ftp/wu-ftpd/mail-archive"
#define MAILBOXDIR "/ftp/wu-ftpd/mail-archive/mailbox"
#define LABEL "WU-FTPD Development Mailing List"
#define ABOUT_LINK "/wu-ftpd"
#define LISTNAME "wu-ftpd"
#define CONFIGFILE "NONE"
#else
#ifdef NFR_ANNOUNCE
#define HYPERMAIL "/usr/local/bin/nfrhypermail"
#define ARCHIVE "/ftp/nfr/mail-archive/nfr-announce"
#define MAILBOXDIR "/ftp/nfr/mail-archive/nfr-announce/mailbox"
#define LABEL "Network Flight Recorder Announcements"
#define ABOUT_LINK "/nfr/mail-archive"
#define LISTNAME "nfr-announce"
#define CONFIGFILE "/usr/local/lib/hypermail/nfr-announce.rc"
...
If you specify a CONFIGFILE path, it will be used to set hypermail
options and is call as
"HYPERMAIL -u -i -c CONFIGFILE".
If you do not specify a CONFIGFILE path, hypermail is called using
the other information as
"HYPERMAIL -u -i -d ARCHIVE/year/month -l \"LABEL\" -b ABOUT_LINK"
3. Next make sure that you have a properly compiled version of hypermail
installed on the system.
4. Edit the Makefile and add the appropriate entries. For example:
wuftpdmail: msg2archive.c
$(CC) -DWU_FTPD -o $@ msg2archive.c
wu-rdmsg: mbox2hypermail.c
$(CC) -DWU_FTPD -o $@ mbox2hypermail.c
5. Compile and install the new programs.
Now everything software-wise is in place. Time to setup your mailer
to process the inbound messages.
6. You need to add an entry to your /etc/aliases file such as
wuftpd: "|/usr/local/bin/wuftpdmail"
7. Assure that your mailer is aware of the new alias, i.e. might need
to type 'newaliases'.
Now you are ready to start receiving messages. Time to subscribe your
new alias to the list you want to archive. If you are running the list
then this is easy. In some cases you have to play games to get an alias
subscribed with other than you normal account. What ever the case get
the new alias subscribed.
======================
So what happens now ?
======================
Messages sent to a list and are resent to the members of the list.
The alias you subscribed is now a member of the list. Messages are
sent to the list archive alias. The "msg2archive" process is started
for each message and the messages are stored into the location specified
in the MAILBOXDIR define. Messages are stored in the directory in a
"month' file or as specified in the configuration file. These are Unix
mailbox formatted files. Once the message is archived in mailbox format,
it is also then archived in hypermail format. The appropriate hypermail
is called with the inbound message sent to it to add to the hypermail
archive.
In this manner each article is available to those who want to read
them online and to those who want to download an entire month's worth
of traffic to read with their favorite mail Unix reader.
If there is ever a problem with the hypermail archives, be it a new
look and feel wanted or a bug fix that requires regeneration of the
archive, the mailbox versions will be used as input to the process.
The script `1998' and the `mbox2hypermail.c' program in this directory
are being used for testing and archive re-creation.
If you want to change the look and feel of the individual hypermail
archive pages, that can be done easily by creating the list specific
header and footer HTML template files as described in the hypermail.1
and hmrc.4 man pages.
===========================
Integrating with Majordomo:
===========================
If you are running a majordomo list and want to integrate this with
majordomo then make sure that the ftp mailbox directory is symlinked
to ~majordomo/Archives/listname directory so that this scheme does
not break majordomo. DO NOT HAVE MAJORDOMO DO ANY ARCHIVING. The
symlink'ed directory is so people will be able to request archives
and index listing from majordomo as normal. Now the list archives
are reachable via the web, ftp or email.
-- Kent Landfield Phone: 1-817-545-2502 Email: kent@landfield.com http://www.landfield.com/ Email: kent@nfr.net http://www.nfr.net/ Search the Usenet FAQ Archive at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ Search the RFC/FYI/STD/BCP Archive at http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/