Email List Manager - Setup
In part two of this article, we'll explore the details of how to set up
the email list manager - elist.pl. Here's a detailed guide for installation
and setup:
-
Retrieve the compressed archive, elist.zip or
elist.tar.
-
If you will be running this script on a UNIX web server (the best available
choice), choose elist.tar. It has the necessary protections already set
on most of the files.
-
Untar (tar xf elist.tar) the archive into a directory. You'll
notice that it creates a directory named "elist." This directory doesn't
need to be a part of the path that is normally served to users. In fact,
it shouldn't be part of it.
-
Within that directory (cd elist), do ls -l to see all
the files. Here's a brief description of each:
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badaddr.html - Displayed when an email address does not contain
the mandatory @
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badpass.html - Shown if an invalid administrator password is entered
-
byebye.html - When a user asks to be deleted from the list, this
message is displayed
-
cgi-lib.pl - A handy interface for doing CGI in Perl. You'll need
to move this and elist.pl into the cgi-bin directory for your
web server.
-
default.html - If you run /cgi-bin/elist.pl with no email address,
this file is shown
-
elist.pl - The main perl script. You'll need to move this and cgi-lib.pl
into the cgi-bin directory for your web server.
-
emaillist.txt - the list of email addresses, one per line with a
tab-a or tab-d to indicate if the address is active (a) or "deleted" (d).
This file must be writable by your httpd process . Doing chmod a+w
emaillist.txt will basically guarantee that it will work, but then
anybody can change it. Contact your site administrator (aka webmaster)
for more information about your web server's specific setup.
-
error.html - If a critical error occurs - like file not found -
this will be displayed
-
notfound.html - Shown if a user tries to delete his or her email
address, but it has already been deleted.
-
onlist.html - Shown if a user enters an email address that is already
on the list.
-
sendmail.html - Displayed when the administrator wants to send an
email to everyone on the list
-
thanks.html - Displayed after a user is added to the list.
-
Feel free to edit the .html files
-
Within some of the files, you'll see things like $email, $MYCGI, etc. These
words that start with $ substituted by the elist.pl. The words and
their substituted values are as follows (they're not case sensitive):
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$email - the current user's email address ("joe%blow"@doe.com)
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$urlemail - user's url encoded email address, for use in MAILTO: urls (%22joe%25blow%22@doe.com)
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$mycgi - the name and path to the elist.pl (/cgi-bin/elist.pl)
-
$back - uses the value of HTTP_REFERER, returned by the client's web browser,
which is usually with the referring (previous) URL
-
All the .html files that elist.pl are parsed for the above strings. None
of the .html files are directly accessed by the user's web browser.
-
And take a look at elist.pl, as you'll need to make some changes there,
too:
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$HOME="/home/dzs/elist" - this should be changed to the directory where
the above files are located. Type "pwd" and you'll see the current
directory.
-
$PASSWORD="goober" - change the goober part to any
obscure word. To be safe, just use letters and numbers, symbols like $
or @ may cause problems. This password is required whenever authentication
is required to view or edit the list or send mail.
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$SENDMAIL="/usr/sbin/sendmail -i -t -v" - this command /usr/sbin/sendmail
is used to actually send the email messages. You'll probably need to change
the path to wherever sendmail is located on your machine. Type which
sendmail to find it.
-
Now, make sure that you've moved the .pl files (elist.pl and cgi-lib.pl)
into your web server's cgi-bin directory.
-
Make sure elist.pl is executable (chmod a+x elist.pl)
-
Contact your webmaster to find out where it is. It might be /usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin
on Apache-based servers.
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If you're lucky, try typing the following into your nearest web browser
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http://yourserver/cgi-bin/elist.pl
-
You should see something like this:
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From this screen, you can enter a new email address or, if you didn't change
the password, view and edit the current list.
Author: Doug Steinwand
Date: [09/16/97]
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