3.2 The email interface

Every mailing list has a set of email addresses to which messages can be sent. There's always one address for posting messages to the list, one address to which bounces are sent, and addresses for processing email commands. For a fictional mailing list called mylist@example.com, you'd find these addresses:

There's also an -admin address which also reaches the list administrators, but this address only exists for compatibility with older versions of Mailman.

For changing options, we use the LISTNAME-request address (for example, mylist-request@example.com).

Commands can appear in the subject line or the body of the message. Each command should be on a separate line. If your mail program automatically appends a signature to your messages, you may want to put the word "end" (without the quotes) on a separate line after your other commands. The end command tells Mailman not to process the email after that point.

The most important command is probably the "help" command, since it makes Mailman return a message full of useful information about the email commands and directions to the web interface.

Quick references to the subscriber commands have been provided in Appendices A and B. (These have been slightly adapted from the output of the help command.)