X-Command:


The format for the X-Command header is:
X-Command: joe@somewhere.edu password command "command" can be anything of the following:
subscribe mailaddressSubscribe mailaddress to the list
unsubscribe mailaddressUnsubscribe mailaddress from the list
checkdist mailaddressTo multigram-match mailaddress to the list (showing the eight best matches)
showdistTo list the distfile
showlogTo list the log
wipelogTo clear the log
helpTo show this command summary
infoDitto

The exact fieldname defaults to "X-Command", but can be customised to whatever you want.

The "joe@somewhere.edu" is always the mail address of the maintainer. Note that this has to match what was specified on the command line of "createlist" when the list was created.

Note that the X-Command: field has to be part of the header, when it's in the body of the mail, it has no effect.

Anytime an X-Command: mail has been processed, the results will be mailed back to the maintainer of the list, and the X-Command: field will have been renamed to X-Processed:.

Although this remote-facility is convenient, some might argue that it presents a security hole. Well, in order to make this hole as small as possible, you can keep the password secret. Also, the exact mailaddress of the maintainer might not be publicly known. You can simply change the X-Command field into something else like X-MyCommand. Above all, since faking mail is a well known possibility it would be ridiculous to take more precautions than these. Besides, if someone indeed manages to sneak in a bogus X-Command:, it will never go unnoticed since the mailing list maintainer (and only the maintainer) will always receive the X-Processed: mail.
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