Re: [LI] Linux India List optimizations?

["Suresh Ramasubramanian" <Suresh@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Let me address a few of these queries - [warning - long post]

On 20 Nov 99, at 12:34, thus spake Gandalf Mithrandir:

> it was being run by Thaths off a Debian machine. Right? It definitely

Full points.  You win a Perk (standard audience prize at quizzes we 
at KCircle <http://www.kcircle.com> conduct <g>)

> was not a Win box. So, how did happy98.exe get flung onto the list ?

O Narya the Wise, O Grey Wizard - just ~what~ does LI running on 
a Debian box have to do with it's sending us a mail with a happy99 
attached?  

Majordomo (on which LI is running) is just another listserver - its 
sole duty is to accept any email (with whatsoever attachment) and 
relay it to members of the list (and to members of the list digest).

The happy99 worm (NOT virus - pls note) is just another attachment 
(a uuencoded attachment) so Majordomo dutifully relayed it to all of 
us.  It originated in the Windows box of whoever sent the worm 
along to the list.

> the digest version. If it was an attachment, shouldn't it have
> appeared along with the text - suitably encoded? How did it manage to

Right, that's how it appeared to the LI list.

> fix itself as an attachment onto the digest version? If this sounds

Why not?  The digest is basically a single mail with several dozen 
mails attached to it (in this case, the attachment type is 
message/rfc-822, ie another email message).  

So, any attachments which are tagged on to one message get 
attached to the digest as well.  Seen all the next-part: / MIME 
headers in some digests?  

As the happy99 is a uuencoded attachment, the full executable 
arrived.  If it was sent in base64 or other encoding, you would have 
got just harmless gibberish (which is why it is sent in uuencode <g>)

Check out whichever RFC governs MIME-Digests (something in the 
1100-1150 series)

> has it?) in the recent past - on an average I get 4 Digests (each
> one approx 43kb). Is this size limit something that can be adjusted

Right you are.  Another list I am on has this set to 60 k.

> Is it possible to send a zipped version of all the digests 

Woops!!! Never seen this done :-)   Maybe a procmail recipe of 
some sort could be cooked up at Thath's end to intercept all the 
digests and zip them.  I really don't know - but wouldn't recommend 
it.  This is a bare bones text digest - and there is a huge risk of mail 
getting garbled in transmission if you try such stuff.

Tell you what.  If you (or others in your predicament) are 
subscribed from your regular mail id (which is used for personal 
mail / other mailing lists etc) set up a new account (preferably a 
pop3 + smtp account like flashmail.com / pmail.net / 
mailandnews.com).  

Web based services like india.com will choke when you subject 
them to this kind of use.  LI is very hyperactive for its size - some 
lists with over 1300 members I'm on get less than 30 posts a day.

> As an aside, could there be a Web enabled interface of the messages,
> read in real time? Say, ordered with info of thread, poster and time

Listserv offers this but Wilma doesn't AFAIK.  Try Majorcool (a free 
majordomo archiver) - this is a bit better than Wilma but still - 
doesn't offer web based posting.  Thaths, you could set up a mailer 
form, which offers a choice of sending mail 

[1] To the list 
[2] To the guy who posted a message
[3] To the guy who is using the web interface to reply

> remotest lack of interest in Win bashing or Man of the whatever, or

Two solutions - use procmail on your box to split the mails and then 
run further filters for words which tell you this is most likely off 
topic.  Junk the suspect posts.  

However, you still have to download every single byte of the junk 
before you can filter it (unless your pop3 box gives you telnet 
access - try http://www.spunge.org - this is a free RH 5.1 shell, but 
the spunge.org server is running on a slow 33.6 k modem 
connection.  Run these filters on that account - that should help.

There is another, better solution which requires intensive list 
discipline - I've suggested it to Thaths long ago (well, a few months 
ago when I first piled in on this list <g>), but then the list did not 
have this kind of traffic at all.

These are current practice on various Listserv lists (I don't know, 
but I assume all this can be done using Majordomo as well).

Introduce subject categories.  (for example: NEWBIE: , NW: 
(network), HW: (hardware), NEW: (new packages etc), HUMOR:, 
MISC: (misc. queries),  AD: (or commercial), and OTHER (off topic). 
 Posts have to be prefixed with one or more categories.

eg: HW: HELP: My SiS6215c is killing me :-(

Members can choose (by sending a command to majordomo) as to 
which categories they want to unsubscribe from - they can always 
read them on the LI web archives.

All mails posted without a prefix category will automatically be 
tagged as OTHER.  New members will not be subscribed to "OTHER" 
by default.  (they can change this by sending a command to 
majordomo)

However, this does not work with digest members, who get a copy 
of everything posted on the list.

Members will by default not be sent a copy of their own posts (they 
can change  ... yeah, yeah, you know.  see above <g>).

Sensitive words like "subscribe" etc will get bounced to the LI admin.

Posts with known off topic content (based on filters against spam 
mail, chain letters, happy 99 etc) will be bounced to sender, with an 
autoreply stating WHY it has been bounced.  

eg: There is a PERL list am on (www-scripts@xxxxxxxxxxxx - from 
Matt's Script Archive) which bounces all mail containing words like 
javascript / java (so if you want to mention that word, you have to 
say j@v@ or jabbascript or whatever).

Hope these help - it requires a lot of discipline on our part - but hey, 
if we did not have that, we would not be touching Linux (we'd be 
playing with a HCL Beanstalk even now, or maybe we'd have 
graduated to WinDOZE 98 with Microsoft Plus! <yuck>)

---s


Suresh Ramasubramanian
106D, Aditya Enclave, Ameerpet, Hyderabad 500038, India.
Phone: +(91-40)3736553/3745398 | eFax: +(1-603)590-5437
Suresh@xxxxxxxxxxx | Suresh@xxxxxxxx
http://www.kcircle.com | http://www.angen.net/~pegasus/
 Special cocktail for the ladies with nuts 
        Sign in a Tokyo bar 

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