Course Mail Help Page


Help on Course mail reflectors

Here is some information that will help in administering your Course mail reflector.

Note: For those who are familiar with Majordomo, please be aware that this is not a full featured Majordomo server. This is a newer, very limited version. Most features that you may be used to will not work in this version.

For more general information on Course mail lists, see:

    http://coursemail.umd.edu/umeg.html

and the OIT Help Desk web pages on Course mail:

    http://www.helpdesk.umd.edu/topics/email/lists/coursemail.

For each of the items below, you will need to send e-mail to the Course mail administrative address: 

  majordomo@coursemail.umd.edu
with some information. This address is maintained by a computer program, and only understands very basic commands, therefore it is important to type in the commands exactly as shown or the computer will not understand what you want. For the program to understand the content, the mail must be sent in text format, not HTML. All administrative e-mail to this address will generate a reply indicating success or failure of the command(s) sent.

New as of July 28th, 2006: The list password for the Course mail list is the new 9-digit Employee ID number, (NOT the old UMID/SSN) of the person who generated the list in UMEG. Your Employee ID should be printed on your UM photo ID card; if you don't know what it is, you can get it by looking yourself up in the UM Directory.

In each of the examples below, whenever you see text in italics, that means you should replace that text with something. For example, using the fictitious course math999-0101-spr06, if you see list_name, you should replace that with math999-0101-spr06.

All of the following commands must be contained on one line in the body of the message (you do not need to give your message a subject). However, occasionally a very long e-mail address may make it necessary to break the command into two lines. In that case, add a backslash ("\")to the end of the first line to indicate that the next line is a continuation. Samples of this are shown below.

Table of contents:

How to add, remove, or change the e-mail address of a member of a Course mail list

To add an e-mail address to the list: 

approve list_password subscribe list_name e-mail_address
For example: 
approve 123456789 subscribe math999-0101-spr06 whatever@umd.edu
For very long addresses, use the continuation character ("\") to split it over two lines: 
approve 123456789 subscribe math999-0101-spr06 \
verylonge-mailaddress@wherever.net
(Back to the table of contents)

To remove an e-mail address from the list: 

approve list_password unsubscribe list_name e-mail_address
For example: 
approve 123456789 unsubscribe math999-0101-spr06 whatever@umd.edu
For very long addresses, use the continuation character ("\") to split it over two lines: 
approve 123456789 unsubscribe math999-0101-spr06 \
verylonge-mailaddress@wherever.net
(Back to the table of contents)

To change an e-mail address on the list, first remove the current e-mail address, then add its replacement. For example: 

approve 123456789 unsubscribe math999-0101-spr06 whatever@glue.umd.edu
approve 123456789 subscribe math999-0101-spr06 whatever@umd.edu
This can be done in the same mail item, or two different mail items.

(Back to the table of contents)

To find out who is currently on a list: 

approve list_password who list_name
For example: 
approve 123456789 who math999-0101-spr06
(Back to the table of contents)

To change or add to the addresses that are allowed to e-mail the class: 

approve list_password auxadd list_name restrict << END
e-mail_address
e-mail_address
END
For example: 
approve 123456789 auxadd math999-0101-spr06 restrict << END
whatever@umd.edu
END

This will add to the current list of e-mail addresses allowed to send mail to the list. When adding multiple e-mail addresses, enter one address per line.

(Back to the table of contents)

To remove the restriction that only the instructor and TAs can send mail to the list
(Note: this means that all of the students can send mail to the list; this is called a discussion list.) You will need to enter two commands in the same mail: 

approve list_password configset list_name restrict_post << END
END
approve list_password configdef list_name restrict_post
For example: 
approve 123456789 configset math999-0101-spr06 restrict_post << END
END
approve 123456789 configdef math999-0101-spr06 restrict_post

(note: There should be no text between the two END words.)

(Back to the table of contents)

To change the administrative password for a list: 

approve list_password configset list_name master_password = new_list_passwd
For example: 
approve 123456789 configset math999-0101-spr06 master_password = HiBob

Be careful when selecting any password. Here are some suggestions for creating a robust password.

(Back to the table of contents)

To contact the administrators of the Course mail system

If you need to contact the Course mail system administrators for any reason, send mail to: 

  owner-majordomo@coursemail.umd.edu
(Back to the table of contents)

Additional resources for Course mail help

The OIT Help Desk web site has additional web pages on Course mail issues. In particular, the Troubleshooting Course mail link is particularly useful for dealing with specific problems you may encounter.

If you have any questions about any of this information, please contact the OIT Help Desk Monday - Friday 8:00 - 5:00 at 301.405.1500.