I am involved in moving a list from American University to another site and had requested their assistance. I received a reply which stated that the list owner and the new host site "are able to issue all of the commands needed to make the transition, and can do so with no intervention from AU." I knew it could be done without their help; I had hoped to minimize the inconvenience to the list owner and the downtime for the list. Here is an overview of the steps required to move a list without assistance from the current host site. See the LISTSERV documentation <http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8d/index.html> for additional information. Additions or corrections to this overview are not only welcome, they are encouraged. First, some caveats regarding interaction with LISTSERV by email: * Command messages, including PUT/PUTALL, must be in simple ASCII text with no attachments. Be sure to disable any options that cause your messages to be sent with HTML, MIME, "styled text". This also applies to the use of PGP or other authentication mechanisms which append a keyed "signature" to an outbound message. * The subscriber information lines in the list header file are longer than the line-wrap break points in most email software. Be sure to disable the line-wrap option, or you will lose subscribers' option settings. * If your email software is configured to automatically add a signature, disable this option. * If your email software is configured to automatically attach a personal information file of any kind, disable this option. * If your service provider automatically appends a banner to every outgoing message, you will have problems. Now, the process: 1. Find a new home and follow their procedures to start a new list. When you are notified that the listserv administrator has done whatever the listserv administrator needs to do, continue with the steps listed below. 2. Send "HOLD listname" to the old home to prevent postings or changes from being processed while you are moving the list. 3. Send "QUERY listname FOR *@*" to the old home to get a list of all current subscribers with their option settings. 4. Send "GET listname" to the old home to get a copy of the list header file, including the subscriber information. Save a copy; you will need it later. Edit a second copy, make any changes needed for the new home - probably just the archives location in the NOTEBOOK= statement - and use PUT (or PUTALL) to store the list at its new home. PUTALL is new in either 1.8c or 1.8d. To find out which to use send "show version" to the new home, then check the LISTSERV documentation. 5. Send "INDEX listname" to the old home to get a list of all files associated with the list. The output will include welcome and farewell messages, customized templates, and the archive log files. 6. Use GET and PUT to retrieve the individual files from the old home and store them at the new home. 7. Verify that the list is working at the new home. Query your (or someone's) subscriber options and compare the results with the output you received from the old home. Check the archives to be sure they are accessible. Do whatever else you need to do to assure yourself that the move was successful. 8. When you are sure that the list is working at its new home, send "RELEASE listname" to the old home to release any pending postings or command requests, then edit the list header you saved earlier, insert a "New-List=" statement pointing to the new list address, and use PUT/PUTALL (see previous discussion) to replace the header at the old home. This will cause postings and commands sent to the old home to be forwarded to the new home until the old home deletes the list header file and/or list-related mail addresses. 9. Post a message to the list informing the subscribers that the list has moved. Provide the new list and command addresses and the new URL for the list archives, if they are web-accessible. The PUT command can be used to store an empty file. You can use this method to effectively delete the archives and/or other list-related files from the old home. Do not do this unless/until you are sure you no longer need those files. You may wish to notify the LISTSERV administrator at the old site that the list has been moved. -- pdr On Fri, 5 Nov 1999, George Frajkor <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > American is disntinuing all its listserv services to groups > outside the university. Unortunately, they seem to have chosen to do > so without notice, without giving much time to move the lists and > without an outline of plans to help move lists membership rolls and > archives. > My own list Journet-L has apparently already been discontinued > before I could evn reply on my efforts to find a new host. Which > means I cannot even inform my members to prepare for a move. > > does anyone have some influence with the administrators at > American? I cannot complain about the service they rendered us for a > long time, but this latest move and the lack of replies from the > administration saddens me a lot. > -- Paul Russell Senior Systems Administrator University of Notre Dame http://www.nd.edu/~prussell/