Majordomo and MajorCool HOWTO

John Archie

15 November 2000

This document is intended to guide a user through an installation of the Majordomo Mailing List Software and MajorCool. MajorCool is a utility for managing Majordomo lists via a CGI script; many people who are unfamiliar with Majordomo's text-based nature prefer the more user-friendly, Web-based interface of MajorCool.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. Credits
1.2. References
2. Sendmail
2.1. Aliases
2.2. Editing sendmail.cf
2.2.1. Another Aliases File
2.2.2. Undesirable Sendmail Security Features
2.2.3. Sendmail Trusted Users
2.2.4. Sendmail Restricted Shell
2.2.5. Group Write Permission
2.3. Configuring sendmail.cf Using the M4 Configuration
2.3.1. Creating Another Aliases File
2.3.2. Making Majordomo a Trusted User
2.3.3. Disabling Sendmail Secure Shell
2.3.4. Disabling Security Features
2.4. Sendmail Security Concerns
2.4.1. Consequences of Unsafe Group Writes
2.4.2. Consequences of Unsafe Group Writable Directory Paths
2.4.3. Protecting Subscribers' Privacy
3. Majordomo
3.1. Preparing to Install
3.2. Editing the Installation Files
3.3. Installing Majordomo
3.4. Creating the Majordomo Aliases
3.5. Testing the Configuration
3.6. Creating Lists
3.7. Further Testing of the Configuration
3.8. Creating Better Aliases
3.9. Debugging
3.10. Majordomo Security Concerns
4. MajorCool
4.1. Extracting MajorCool
4.2. Edit the Configure Script
4.3. Installing MajorCool
5. Frequently Asked Questions
List of Terms

1. Introduction

This HOWTO is divided into several sections. The Sendmail portion is a general discussion about Majordomo and how Majordomo interfaces with Sendmail, as well as the various ways Majordomo can be set up and the consequences of such decisions. In contrast, the rest of the HOWTO is a tutorial guiding a user through a plain installation process of Majordomo. I recommend going over the generic installation process described in the sections after Sendmail, referencing the appropriate portions of the Sendmail section when necessary (the appropriate sections are mentioned in the appropriate places). Then, read the Sendmail section carefully and decide exactly how to configure your system. Finally, a List of Terms provides definitions for some of the more abstruse terms.

Also, if the official sites for downloading any of the software mentioned in this document are down, the tarballs can be found at my Web site.

1.1. Credits

Thanks go out (in alphabetical order) to a few people for their invaluable help.

1.2. References

Although I have tried to make this HOWTO as complete as possible, it is always a good idea to look at more than one source. Below is a list of the resources that I found helpful when trying to configure Majordomo for the first time.

Books:

Free resources:

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