Hello folks,

As the plans here start to unfold for changing the domain name of the
machine that Listserv runs on, the complexity of the project has just
doubled beyond my comfort zone.  I would appreciate any advice or insight
based on your experiences in a similar situation.

The plan has now changed to include e-mail address changes for all
faculty, staff and students at Queen's to [log in to unmask], as well as
the planned domain name change to LISTSERV.

My question is about the possible appropriate use of aliases.names to
solve what may be some significant problems, plus any other ideas you
might have - private replies are also welcome.

Here is the situation currently. We have 2 SUN solaris boxes:

1. Listserv and all faculty & staff mailboxes are on post.queensu.ca
    - approx 98% of all List Owner e-mail addresses are
      [log in to unmask]

2. All students are on qlink.queensu.ca
    - all LISTSERV class mailing list subscribers are
      [log in to unmask]

Here is the draft plan sent to me a few days ago for comment regarding
LISTSERV Services:

1.  All faculty, staff and student e-mail boxes will be moved to a group
of SUN boxes running the SUN JES communications suite.  All e-mail
addresses will change to [log in to unmask]

2. LISTSERV will stay on post.queensu.ca but the domain name will be
changed to lists.queensu.ca.

3. Forwarding will be set up from all post & qlink e-mail addresses to the
new e-mail addresses of [log in to unmask]   (forwarding is planned to
stay in effect for many many years)

4. The proposed solution to handle class mailing lists is to:
-- add existing qlink e-mail addresses in the Fall
-- add the new e-mail addresses for all students but set them all to
    NOMAIL.

My questions are the following:

1. Would adding post.queensu.ca to LISTSERV's aliases.names file after the
domain name change to lists.queensu.ca be appropriate in this situation?

If it works the way I think, after the domain change to lists.queensu.ca,
it should allow List Owners to still Login using their old post.queensu.ca
List Owner e-mail addresses & passwd in the SignUp files, correct?.  I
have a feeling someone is going to say No!

The alternative would be to ask all List Owners to add their new
[log in to unmask] as second owner before the move.  Or write a script to
add an Owner=line for each existing Owner= with the new address below a
QUIET: line.

2. I don't like number 4. on how to handle all LISTSERV class lists but I
don't see another alternative (see rationale below for why a global
CHANGE command isn't a solution).

3. Managing external subscriptions. With the forwarding set up (for many
years) I do not anticipate problems with external e-mail coming into
Queen's subscribers who are members of mailing lists "out there".

I do anticipate problems with folks here being able to send e-mail to
external mailing lists when they decide for example, to change their
e-mail address from [log in to unmask] (or post) to [log in to unmask]
and I'm stressing to the planners that we need to "be in their face" with
reminders and Lsoft has stressed this with me as well. Because there is no
specific date for the e-mail address changes, reminders will have to be
ongoing for a very long time.

The rationale. The rationale for adding 2 subscriber e-mail addresses per
student, with the new one set to NOMAIL, is too allow all students to
slowly change to using the new e-mail address and not lose access to their
lists -- we will need lots of reminders as the new e-mail addr will be set
to NOMAIL and will not have a passwd for Login. Same rationale for faculty
and staff as moving over will be when they decide. There is no date --
that idea was proposed for a date in Sept, but thankfully dropped quickly.

Thank you for any advice/insight you might offer.

Sorry this is so long-winded!

Sincerely, Trish

Trish Forrest
Queen's University