A new version of the VMS/unix distributions is being made available on
the usual FTP sites, including SEGATE.SUNET.SE and FTP.SPC.EDU. Due to
the usual scheduled downtimes at this time of the year, it may take a few
days for the files corresponding to your operating system to become
available on the FTP sites. The new files are dated Dec 25 or later. If
you do not see the file you need, just wait until after New Year and try
again.
The update contains a number of improvements to facilitate the use of
LISTSERV on the Internet, and to make life easier for MIME users. These
changes will be released for VM as part of the 1.8b upgrade, which should
begin beta testing around the end of January. For unix, you will also
need to download the common_tar.Z file. The incoming mail interface has
been improved to better recognize and handle delivery errors, and it now
supports PP and Zmailer out of the box. Finally, a jobview utility has
been included to make it easier to examine xxx.job files in the spool
directory. I am enclosing some additional information on these changes
and instructions on how to install them. VMS users should simply fetch
the updated ZIP file and re-install the product; VMSINSTAL will
automatically perform an upgrade.
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The new version of LSV_AMIN can be compiled to work with PP Mail and the
command syntax has been extended to work with ZMAILER as well. In
addition, the LISTSERV spool directory is incorporated into the program
so that it need not be specified on each mail alias. As a result, the
alias file entries are much shorter, and will not need to be changed if
you move the LISTSERV spool directory. LSV_AMIN also scans incoming mail
to catch mail delivery errors, extracting the failing address and reason
for the failure. A number of different delivery error formats are
recognized, allowing LSV_AMIN to preprocess mail from a wide range of
systems. Once LSV_AMIN has caught a mail delivery error, the message is
converted to a format that lets LISTSERV automatically delete bad
addresses from mailing lists. That is, unless the setting
"Auto-Delete=No" has been included in the header of a mailing list, any
"user unknown" or "host unknown" type errors will cause LISTSERV to
remove the indicated address from the mailing list. A note explaining
what has occurred is sent to the list owner of course. Please note that
the "Makefile" used to install LISTSERV has changed to support these
enhancements, so please make certain to use the new copy if you are
updating a previously installed LISTSERV. To refresh your LISTSERV you'll
need to fetch two files. You can find the files on either FTP.SPC.EDU or
SEGATE.SUNET.SE. Connect to either host using FTP and login as user
"anonymous". After logging in, enter "cd listserv" then "cd unix" to get
to the proper directory. The files you need are called "common_tar.z" and
"XXX_tar.z" where "XXX" corresponds to the operating system you are
using. Once you have retrieved the files, uncompress and de-tar them in a
scratch directory. You'll then have a copy of the installation guide,
"u-install.memo". See the section titled "Deciding where LISTSERV will
reside" for instructions on how to customize the Makefile for your
system. Then to install updated version of the server, mail interface,
utility programs and data files enter "make update". If you only want to
update the mail interface, enter "make update_mailer" instead.
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Eric
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