Mailman

[posted 2001/04/19]

Here's another alarm script we wrote recently with a few interesting new twists:

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

#if mailmanserver

MailmanAddressesChkWarning

        init
                status active
                level warning
                task "Report ill-formed Mailman addresses."
                input file "=mmusers"
                seps ":"
                dat $list 1
                dat $addr 2

        begin   // because this takes quite a while, and so as not to
                // pester the mailman-owner (or list owners) too much,
                // check on tuesdays only
                if ! =tuesday
                        quit
                fi

                // we could send warning messages to the list owners, i.e.,
                // =mailmsg(bad address\, please fix, $inlin, $list-owner\)
                // but list owners are often clueless and might not discern
                // what's wrong with any given address (e.g., has whitespace);
                // so we just uniformly report to mailman-owner; we don't
                // report to both to avoid confusion

                // eventually, we might invoke remove_members to
                // remove bad addresses automatically, but for now it's
                // best to let the mailman-owner do it (e.g., remove the
                // bad address and add back a corrected address, where the
                // correction is humanly obvious but hard to script)

#  ifdef test
                set $recipient = "pikt-test\"
#  elsedef
                set $recipient = "mailman-owner\"
                // or:  set $recipient = "$list-owner\"
                // or perhaps even send to one or the other depending
                // on the clarity of the problem
#  endifdef

        rule    // addresses with whitespace
                if $addr =~ "[[:space:]]"
                        =outputmail $inlin
                        =mailmsg(bad address\, please fix, $inlin, $recipient)
                        next
                fi

        rule    // addresses not of the form "foo"
                if #split($addr, "@") != 2
                        =outputmail $inlin
                        =mailmsg(bad address\, please fix, $inlin, $recipient)
                        next
                fi
                set $acct = $1
                set $site = $2

        rule    // addresses of the form ""
                if $acct eq ""
                        =outputmail $inlin
                        =mailmsg(bad address\, please fix, $inlin, $recipient)
                        next
                fi

        rule    // addresses not of the form ""; by implication,
                // includes addresses of the form "foo@"
                if #split($site, ".") !> 1
                        =outputmail $inlin
                        =mailmsg(bad address\, please fix, $inlin, $recipient)
                        next
                fi

#endif  // mailmanserver

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The file =mmusers (generated by the FindMailmanAddressesAdmin script; not shown) has contents like this:

...
nyalumni:
nyalumni:
faculty-visiting:
faculty-visiting:
faculty-visiting:
...

If we find a bad address (i.e., one not of the general form ""), we possibly (depending on whether verbose is #define'd as TRUE; see the configs_samples/defines.cfg) send it, all at once in a single alert message, using

                        =outputmail $inlin

We send individual e-mail messages using

                        =mailmsg(bad address\, please fix, $inlin, $recipient)

where =mailmsg() is a new macro defined (in macros.cfg) as:

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

mailmsg(S, M, R)        // e-mail a one-line message (M) with subject (S)
                        // to recipient (R)
                        // sample use: =mailmsg(bad address, $inlin, $list\-owner)
                        =execwait "echo '(M)' | =mailx -s '(S)' (R)"

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Note the similarity to the =page() macro described earlier:

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

page(M, R, H)   // send a page message (M) to recipients (pager phone alias)
                // (R) but only during hours (H)
                // sample use:  =page($host is sick/down,
                                      =pagesysadmins, =allhours)
                if (H)
                        =execwait "echo '(M)' | =mailx -s '(M)' (R)"
                fi

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

In the =mailmsg() call, we have to backslash the first comma, i.e., "bad address\, please fix", because otherwise we would be passing four arguments to the macro, but =mailmsg() only accepts three.  Note, too, that in the macro call, we don't enclose text with quotes (""), given how we defined =mailmsg().

Since we optionally send all bad addresses in one e-mail message to this script's usual e-mail recipient (we have it set to pikt-warning), why have the separate =mailmsg() calls, sending one bad address e-mail at a time? The reason is that if we ever switch to sending to list owners, we need to discriminate between recipients on a case-by-case basis.

I hope this discussion is clear.

For more examples, see Developer's Notes.