Majordomo is, of course, the piece of code that this document revolves around; it consists of a collection of Perl scripts with the sole purpose of managing mailing lists.
Download the gzipped source distribution of the latest version of Majordomo from http://www.greatcircle.com/majordomo/ and uncompress it
[jarchie@kes jarchie]$ zcat majordomo-1.94.4.tar.Z | tar xvf -
Majordomo must run under a specific UID and GID so when any of the scripts are run, they will run under Majordomo's UID. Thus, it is necessary to decide what UID and GID Majordomo should run under. Also, Majordomo must be a Sendmail trusted user. (See Consequences of Making Majordomo a Trusted User)
Check the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files to find a UID and GID that are not taken. For this example, a UID of 16 and a GID of 16 was chosen. You have to decide on the location where the Majordomo scripts will reside; in this HOWTO, the directory /usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/ was chosen. If you are using a shadowed password file add entries similar to
majordomo:x:16:16:Majordomo List Manager:/usr/local/majordomo-1.9.4:
/etc/passwd and add an appropriate entry to /etc/shadow.
majordomo:*:10883:0:88888:7:::
/etc/passwd file is necessary.
To create a Majordomo group, add the line
majordomo:x:16:jarchie,majordomo
/etc/group file. This will give you access to the Majordomo files that are group writable. Also, you might want to add majordomo to the daemon group to make it a trusted user (See
Sendmail Trusted Users); to do this, change the line that looks something like
daemon:x:2:root,bin,daemon
daemon:x:2:root,bin,daemon,majordomo
The Makefile contains all the information needed to install Majordomo; it is usually necessary to edit lines in the Makefile that refer to system specific settings so Majordomo will be able to install cleanly on your system. Most of the default settings are correct; however, the following settings, almost invariably, need to be changed on a per system basis.
[jarchie@kes majordomo-1.94.4]$ vi Makefile
PERL = /bin/perl
CC = cc
W_HOME = /usr/test/majordomo-$(VERSION)
MAN = $(W_HOME)/man
W_USER = 123
W_GROUP = 45
PERL = /usr/bin/perl
CC = gcc
W_HOME = /usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4
MAN = /usr/man
W_USER = 16
W_GROUP = 16
majordomo.cf file must be created. An easy way to create this file is to copy the provided sample.cf file to majordomo.cf and edit it.
[jarchie@kes majordomo-1.94.4]$ cp sample.cf majordomo.cf
[jarchie@kes majordomo-1.94.4]$ vi majordomo.cf
$whereami = "example.com";
$whoami = "Majordomo\@$whereami";
$whoami_owner = "Majordomo-Owner\@$whereami";
$homedir = "/usr/test/majordomo";
$digest_work_dir = "/usr/local/mail/digest";
$sendmail_command = "/usr/lib/sendmail";
$whereami = "kes.emeraldis.com";
$whoami = "majordomo\@$whereami";
$whoami_owner = "majordomo-owner\@$whereami";
$homedir = "/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4";
$digest_work_dir = "/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/digest";
$sendmail_command = "/usr/sbin/sendmail";
$whoami and $whoami_owner do not need to be changed for Majordomo to work; however, I changed them because I like to avoid typing capital letters. $digest_work_dir is a temporary directory where digest files should be placed; this directory should be assigned to wherever you want digests to be stored. If you do not plan to use digested lists, do not worry about this option. $whereami, $homedir, and $sendmail_command should be changed to appropriate values for your system. Unlike the Makefile, these options can always be changed after Majordomo is installed by editing majordomo.cf in the directory where Majordomo was installed. (The configuration file is simply copied during setup.)
The next step is to compile the Majordomo wrapper. The wrapper is the only Majordomo component that needs to be compiled because everything else is a collection of perl scripts and, therefore, is not compiled.
[jarchie@kes majordomo-1.94.4]$ make wrapper
[jarchie@kes majordomo-1.94.4]# make install
[jarchie@kes majordomo-1.94.4]# make install-wrapper
root so the installation script can SUID root the Majordomo wrapper. (Since, majordomo was created without a login shell or password, if you want to execute the first command as majordomo, you will need to su majordomo as root in order to become majordomo.)
Sendmail aliases must be created for Majordomo so commands sent to Majordomo can be processed by Majordomo and the majordomo owner in order that people can E-mail you through the standard owner-majordomo address. Add the following entries to your aliases file. (See
Aliases)
majordomo: "|/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/wrapper majordomo"
owner-majordomo: jarchie
majordomo-owner: jarchie
As a regular user (not as majordomo or as root), run
[jarchie@kes jarchie]$ /usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/wrapper config-test
To create a list, create a file with the name of the list in the Majordomo lists directory. For example, to create a list called test, create a test file as Majordomo
[root@kes /]# su majordomo
[majordomo@kes /]$ touch /usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/lists/test
test: :include:/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/lists/test
owner-test: jarchie
test-request: "|/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/wrapper request-answer test"
test-approval: jarchie
Now test the operation of the list by issuing a lists command to majordomo.
[jarchie@kes jarchie]$ echo lists | mail majordomo
majordomo to reply with a message containing all the lists which are currently set up. Next, try issuing a help command.
[jarchie@kes jarchie]$ echo help | mail majordomo
To see if the aliases are working properly, try subscribing and unsubscribing yourself to the list.
[jarchie@kes jarchie]$ echo subscribe test | mail majordomo
To unsubscribe from a list, send a unsubscribe command
[jarchie@kes jarchie]$ echo unsubscribe test | mail majordomo
For some lists, it may be desirable to have Majordomo process messages before they reach the list. For example, Majordomo has an option automatically to filter messages based on content (such as taboo words), or Majordomo can catch people trying to send Majordomo commands to the list. To use these options, it is necessary to use a better set of aliases such as
test: "|/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/wrapper resend -l test test-list"
test-list: :include:/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/lists/test
owner-test: jarchie
test-owner: jarchie
test-request: "|/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/wrapper majordomo -l test"
[email protected] with the text subscribe rather than sending a letter to [email protected] with the text subscribe test.