nanolist

nanolist

nanolist is a lightweight mailing list manager written in Go. It's easy to deploy, and easy to manage. It was written as an antithesis of the experience of setting up other mailing list software.

Usage

nanolist is controlled by emailing nanolist with a command in the subject.

The following commands are available:

• help - Reply with a list of valid commands
• list - Reply with a list of available mailing lists
• subscribe list-id - Subscribe to receive mail sent to the given list
• unsubscribe list-id - Unsubscribe from receiving mail sent to the given list

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a web interface?

No. If you'd like an online browsable archive of emails, I recommend looking into tools such as hypermail, which generate HTML archives from a list of emails.

If you'd like to advertise the lists on your website, it's recommended to do that manually, in whatever way looks best. Subscribe buttons can be achieved with a mailto: link.

How do I integrate this with my preferred mail transfer agent?

I'm only familiar with postfix, for which there are instructions below. The gist of it is: have your mail server pipe emails for any mailing list addresses to nanolist message. nanolist will handle any messages sent to it this way, and reply using the configured SMTP server.

Why would anyone want this?

Some people prefer mailing lists for patch submission and review, some people want to play mailing-list based games such as nomic, and some people are just nostalgic and/or crazy.

Installation

First, you'll need to build and install the nanolist binary: go get github.com/arnaudmorin/nanolist

If you already clone code, local build: ``

Second, you'll need to write a config to either /etc/nanolist.ini or /usr/local/etc/nanolist.ini as follows:

You can also specify a custom config file location by invoking nanolist with the --config flag: nanolist --config=/path/to/config.ini

Example of configuration file:

# File for event and error logging. nanolist does not rotate its logs
# automatically.
# You'll need to set permissions on it depending on which account your MTA
# runs nanolist as.
log = /var/log/nanolist.log

# An sqlite3 database is used for storing the email addresses subscribed to
# each mailing list.
# You'll need to set permissions on it depending on which account your MTA
# runs nanolist as.
database = /var/local/nanolist.db

[bot]
# Address nanolist should receive user commands on
command_address = lists@lists.example.com
bounces_address = bounces@lists.example.com

# SMTP details for sending mail
smtp_hostname = "smtp.lists.example.com"
smtp_port = 25
smtp_username = "nanolist"
smtp_password = "hunter2"

Initiate the DB and create a list by invoking nanolist:

# Regular list
nanolist create --name="RMCS" --description="Liste du Radio Model Club Senonais" rmcs@lists.example.com

# List with bcc (e.g. for archiving)
nanolist create --name="RMCS" --description="Liste du Radio Model Club Senonais" --bcc archive@lists.example.com rmcs@lists.example.com

# List restricted to some users (e.g. for announcements / newletters)
nanolist create --name="RMCS annonces" --description="Annonces du club" --poster admin@lists.example.com announce@lists.example.com

# Hidden list, for subscribers only
nanolist create --name "fight club" --flag subscribers_only --flag hidden fc@lists.example.com

Add users to the ml

nanolist subscribe arnaud@example.com rmcs@lists.example.com

More in help"

nanolist --help

Postfix configuration

In main.cf:

# If nanolist is alone on this mail server
virtual_transport = nanolist

# Or if in combination with dovecot
virtual_transport = virtual
transport_maps = mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-virtual-transports.cf
# And make sure the SELECT statement for your list domain (lists.example.com) return 'nanolist'

There is a way to do that with hash also instead of mysql. Check postfix manual.

In master.cf, at the end of the file:

nanolist  unix  -       n       n       -       -       pipe
  flags=FR user=vmail argv=/path/to/nanolist
  message

and restart postfix.

Congratulations, you've now set up mailing lists!

License

nanolist is made available under the BSD-3-Clause license.