CHAPTER 4

Distribution List Administration



This chapter discusses the distribution list administration tasks that are performed by the delegated administrator or distribution list owner. Those tasks are:

Creating a distribution list
Editing a distribution list's properties
Using a command line interface to perform tasks

Included in the following sections, examples and figures help to illustrate how Sarah Jones, the delegated administrator creates and edits distribution lists.

Creating a Distribution List

An e-mail distribution list is a list of e-mail addresses (users) that can be sent a message by specifying one e-mail address. A distribution list may have one or more owners assigned to it. An owner can perform all operations on the distribution list except for creating distribution lists and assigning owners. Only the delegated administrator can create distribution lists and assign owners to the lists. The owner of a distribution list can edit the properties of the distribution lists that he or she owns.

If a moderator is designated (in the advanced settings page), the distribution list becomes a moderated list. In a moderated distribution list, all messages sent by members of the distribution list are sent to the moderator. The moderator either approves or disapproves the messages and sends the messages (if approved) to all the members of the distribution list. A moderated distribution list can be beneficial. For example, a company might set up a distribution list to provide news and information to all employees in the marketing department. This distribution list can be set up as a moderated list to prevent unrelated messages from being distributed to the members on the list.

In the following task, Sarah Jones creates a new distribution list called medical_news. This is a monthly newsletter and also serves as a forum for members to share news and information. Rhett Green is the distribution list owner, and Lori Chen is the moderator.

In addition to the figures, refer to the field descriptions for the syntax for each entry.


 

To create a new distribution list

  1. Click Create Distribution List on the navigation bar.
  The "Create Distribution List" page displays. The fields that are displayed are the basic properties for creating a distribution list.
 

FIGURE  4-1 Create Distribution List page

  You may wish to set up the distribution list to have some access control. If so, then you can use the advanced settings to create the distribution list. To display the advanced properties, click Show Advanced.
  2. Enter the requested data into the fields.
 

FIGURE  4-2 New Distribution List

  The basic fields are:
  List Name--the name of the distribution list that is being created. This is the name that will be used as the e-mail address of the distribution list.
  example: medical_news
  Owner Login IDÞ--the login ID of the owner (or owners) of the distribution list. The owner ID must be a valid login ID of an existing user or users.
  example: rgreen
  Description--a text description of the purpose of the distribution list. This description will appear in the search results table when a a search is performed on a distribution list.
  example: Medical News
  Members list--the e-mail addresses of the members of this distribution list. When e-mail is sent to this distribution list, all the list members receive this e-mail. Each e-mail address can be separated by spaces, commas, semi-colons, or carriage returns. Each e-mail address can be a string of valid e-mail addresses or login IDs (within the same domain).

You may also use the user search located at the bottom of the page to add members to this distribution list. This is useful if you don't remember the e-mail addresses of the users to be added to the distribution list. See "Searching for a User" on page 18 for instructions on searching for a user. Once the search results appear, you can click Add to distribution list in the search results table to add the user to the Members List field.

  example: rgreen, rachelg macduff, spider
  3. Click Apply to create this list, or click Show Advanced to set the advanced properties.
  When you click Show Advanced, the "Create Distribution List--Advanced Settings" page displays.
  4. Enter the data into the advanced properties fields.
 

FIGURE  4-3 Distribution List Advanced Settings

  Any text that you have entered into the basic "Create Distribution List" page fields are transferred to the corresponding fields on the advanced form. You can return to the basic "Create Distribution List" page by clicking Show Basic. The fields in the advanced form are:
  Moderators--the moderator for this distribution list. The distribution list becomes a moderated distribution list when a valid entry is made to this field. The moderator does not need to be a member of this distribution list or the owner of the list. This is an optional field.
  example: lchen
  Can people join this list without approval?--if Yes is selected, users can subscribe to this distribution list without approval of the list owner. If No is selected, users must ask the owner to add them to the list.
  Can people view the list members?--if Yes is selected, users can see the members currently subscribing to this distribution list. Distribution list members can be viewed from the "Distribution List Subscription" page.
  Is this a shared mailbox?--if Yes is selected, e-mail messages sent to the distribution list are delivered to a "shared" mailbox instead of being sent to the members. The shared mailbox is given the name of the distribution list, and list members have permission to open this mailbox and view the messages.
  Address for undelivered messages--specifies an e-mail address where undelivered messages are delivered. If a message cannot be delivered, then the message is "bounced" or sent back to the e-mail address specified in this field. Normally, the message would be returned to the sender as an undelivered message. This can be useful to set this field to the delegated administrator or distribution list owner in order to receive notification when an address or one of the members becomes invalid.
  Authorized Submitters--specifies those people who are allowed to post messages to this distribution list. If entries appear in this field, then only those people may post to this list. Anybody else attempting to post will be rejected. Valid e-mail addresses or login IDs of users in your domain must be entered into this field. If this field is blank, then all members may post to this list. This field allows the owners to set up access control to this list. This is an optional field.
  Unauthorized Submitters--specifies those people forbidden to post to this distribution list. Valid e-mail addresses or login IDs of users in your domain must be entered into this field. This may be a good method of preventing unsolicited or bulk e-mail to be delivered to members of this list. This is an optional field.
  Authorized Domains--specifies those domains that are allowed to post messages to this distribution list. If entries appear in this field, then only users from those domains may post to this list. Anybody else attempting to post will be rejected. If this field is blank, then all users from any domain may post to this list. This is an optional field.
  example: stream.com
  Unauthorized Domains--specifies those domains forbidden to post to this distribution list. This is an optional field.
  5. Click Apply.
  The Create Distribution List confirmation page displays.
 

FIGURE  4-4 Distribution List confirmation

Editing a Distribution List

If you are a distribution list owner, you can modify the properties of the distribution lists that you own. A delegated administrator can edit any distribution list that is a part of the domain run by the Delegated Management Console.

Editing a distribution involves three steps:

  1. Search for a distribution list.
  2. Select a distribution list from the search results.
  3. Edit the distribution list's properties.

In the following set of tasks, Sarah edits the properties for the All_Employee_News distribution list.

To display the "Edit Distribution List" page, click Edit Distribution List on the navigation bar.

 

FIGURE  4-5 Edit Distribution List page


Searching for a Distribution List

You can either select a distribution list from the list of distribution lists that you own displayed on this page, or you can search for a distribution list.

You can search for a distribution list using one or more of the following criteria:

Distribution list name
Description

Each search criteria field allows you to choose how the search is performed. Selecting Contains means that the search will find any occurrences that contain the field entry. Exact match means that the search will find any occurrences that match exactly with the field entry. The Begins with and Ends with selections tells the search to look for distribution lists that begin with or end with the specified entry.

In order to display the list properties for All_Employee_News, Sarah searches for the list.


 

To search for a distribution list

  1. Enter the search criteria.
  The Description search is a substring search. This means that it performs a search on the string of words entered into the field. For example, if you enter "dog obedience school" into this field, the search tries to find a distribution list with the exact string "dog obedience school" in the description for the distribution list. The search does not find a description that has one or more of the words in the string, so it will not look for descriptions that contain "dog" or "obedience" or "school" in it.
  In the stream.com example, Sarah enters Employee into the Distribution List Name field.
  2. Select the search method.
  In the stream.com example, Sarah knows that the name contains the words "Employee", so she selects Contains.
  3. Once you make your field entry or entries and select the from the field's menu, click Search to search and display the results.

If all of the fields remain blank and you click Search, all the distribution lists will be displayed in the search results table.

FIGURE  4-6 Distribution List Search Results

  4. Find the distribution list you wish to edit from the search results table, or perform another search.
  5. Once you select the distribution list, click edit properties within the same row that the distribution list is located.

Editing the Distribution List Properties

The delegated administrator and the distribution list owner have the ability to edit the distribution list properties. Once a specific distribution list is selected, its properties are displayed.

FIGURE  4-7 Distribution List basic properties


 

To modify the distribution list properties:

  1. Enter or edit the data in the appropriate fields.
  All of the basic fields are described in Step 2 of "Creating a Distribution List."
  2. Click Apply to commit your changes or click Show Advanced to display the advanced properties.
 

FIGURE  4-8 Distribution List Advanced Properties

  3. Enter or change the appropriate data into the advanced property fields.
  The advanced properties for a distribution list are described in "Creating a Distribution List."
  4. Click Apply.

The screen repaints with the words "Distribution List Updated Successfully" on the top.


 

To delete the distribution list:

  1. Click the X that appears next to the "Delete" field.
  A confirmation page appears asking you to confirm whether or not you wish to delete this distribution list.
 

FIGURE  4-9 Delete Distribution List Confirmation

  2. Select either "Yes, Delete this Distribution List" or "No, Cancel delete operation".
  If you choose not to delete this distribution list, then the page returns to the distribution list properties page. If you choose to proceed with the list deletion, then a blank Edit Distribution List page displays with the words "Distribution List Deleted Successfully."

Using CLIs

If the ISP provides you with a UNIX shell account, you can perform some of the tasks using command line interfaces (CLIs). In order to do this, you should be familiar with UNIX.

The CLIs available for distribution list tasks are:

Creating (adding) a distribution list: imadmin add group
Editing a distribution list's properties: imadmin modify group
Deleting a distribution list: imadmin delete group

For details on the usage and syntax of the commands, see the UNIX man pages available for each command.



Copyright © 1999 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.