Majordomo and MajorCool HOWTO
John Archie, johnarchie@emeraldis.com
v1.0, 10 November 1999

This document is intended to guide a user through an installation of
the Majordomo Mailing List Software and MajorCool. MajorCool is a
utility for managing Majordomo lists via a CGI script; many people who
are unfamiliar with Majordomo's text-based nature prefer the more user
friendly web-based interface of MajorCool.
______________________________________________________________________

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

1.1 Credits
1.2 References

2. Sendmail

2.1 Aliases
2.2 Editing
2.2.1 Another Aliases File
2.2.2 Undesirable Sendmail Security Features
2.2.3 Sendmail Trusted Users
2.2.4 Sendmail Restricted Shell
2.2.5 Group Write Permission
2.3 Configuring
2.3.1 Creating Another Aliases File
2.3.2 Making Majordomo a Trusted User
2.3.3 Disabling Sendmail Secure Shell
2.3.4 Disabling Security Features
2.4 Sendmail Security Concerns
2.4.1 Consequences of Unsafe Group Writes
2.4.2 Consequences of Making Majordomo a Trusted User
2.4.3 Consequences of Unsafe Group Writable Directory Paths
2.4.4 Protecting Subscribers' Privacy

3. Majordomo

3.1 Preparing to Install
3.2 Editing the Installation Files
3.3 Installing Majordomo
3.4 Creating the Majordomo Aliases
3.5 Testing the Configuration
3.6 Creating Lists
3.7 Further Testing of the Configuration
3.8 Creating Better Aliases

4. MajorCool

4.1 Extracting MajorCool
4.2 Edit the
4.3 Installing MajorCool

5. List of Terms

______________________________________________________________________

1. Introduction

This HOWTO is divided into several sections. The Sendmail portion of
this HOWTO is a general discussion about Majordomo and how it
interfaces with Sendmail, as well as the various ways Majordomo can be
set up and the consequences of such decisions. In contrast, the rest
of the HOWTO is set up like a tutorial guiding a user through a plain
installation process of Majordomo. I recommend going over the generic
installation process described in the sections after Sendmail,
referencing the appropriate portions of the Sendmail section when
necessary (the appropriate sections are mentioned in the appropriate
places). Then, read the Sendmail section carefully and decide exactly
how to configure your system. Finally, a List of Terms provides
definitions for some of the more abstruse terms.

Also, when downloading any of the software mentioned in this document,
if any of the official sites are down, the tarballs can be downloaded
from my site--http://philosophy.lander.edu/~jarchie/majordomo/.

1.1. Credits

Thanks go out (in alphabetical order) to a few people for their
invaluable help.

o Lee Archie for proofreading

o James Bruce and Bill Poston for the opportunity to set up my first
permanent machine running Majordomo

o Joseph D. Sloan for reading the Sendmail portion and making helpful
suggestions

1.2. References

Although I have tried to make this HOWTO as complete as possible, it
is always a good idea to look at more than one source. Below is a
list of the resources that I found helpful when trying to configure
Majordomo for the first time.

Books:

1. Bryan Costales with Eric Allman, sendmail. Cambridge: O'Reilly,
1997.

2. Alan Schwartz, Managing Mailing Lists. Cambridge: O'Reilly, 1998.

Free resources:

1. the documentation that comes with Sendmail especially README.cf

2. the documentation that comes with Majordomo especially INSTALL and
NEWLIST

3. the Majordomo-Users Mailing List Archive
(http://www.hpc.uh.edu/majordomo-users/)

4. the documentation that comes with MajorCool

2. Sendmail

Since Majordomo is responsible for managing E-mail lists, Majordomo
relies heavily on a MTA such as Sendmail. There are other MTA's such
as Smail and Qmail out there; however, Sendmail is the oldest and most
common. This section introduces the reader to the areas of Sendmail
that are useful or necessary to configure when using Majordomo.

2.1. Aliases

The Sendmail aliases file (usually /etc/aliases) is used for making
aliases for E-mail addresses. For example, once Majordomo is
installed, usually an entry in the aliases file reads:

majordomo-owner: jarchie

This entry means that all mail addressed to majordomo-owner@host.com
will actually be sent to jarchie@host.com. Notice it is unnecessary
to append the @host.com to jarchie because both users are on the same
host. If it were desired to redirect the message to a different user
on a different host, one would have to add the @host.com portion.

Another type of entry in the aliases file allows an E-mail to be
redirected to multiple addresses people listed in a file:

testlist: :include:/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/lists/testlist

This entry states that any message sent to testlist@host.com will be
redirected to all the addresses listed in the file /usr/local/major-
domo-1.94.4/lists/testlist. The testlist file might look something
like this:

johnarchie@emeraldis.com
srobirds@yahoo.com
acreswell@geocities.com

Majordomo is able to add or subtract addresses from a list by taking
advantage of this feature. When a subscribe request is processed, the
user's E-mail address is appended to the testlist file; when an unsub-
scribe request is processed, the user's E-mail address is removed from
the testlist file. One can also add or subtract addresses manually
simply by editing the file with a text editor such as vi.

Since Majordomo needs to be able to process commands sent to it via E-
mail, Sendmail must be able to execute the Majordomo program and pass
the message to it. This is done by adding another type of entry to
the aliases file:

majordomo: "|/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/wrapper majordomo"

The program /usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/wrapper is a wrapper (SUID
majordomo and SGID majordomo or daemon depending on the configuration)
that runs the Majordomo program. The quotation marks around the sec-
ond part of the alias entry are used to tell Sendmail that this part
of the entry is all one statement; the quotation marks would be unnec-
essary if there wasn't a space between wrapper and majordomo. The |
is known as a "pipe"; it is used to tell Sendmail to send the E-mail
to the wrapper via the standard input. (Since all the wrapper does
here is to call majordomo, the E-mail is actually being sent to Major-
domo.) The wrapper accepts one parameter--the parameter of the pro-
gram it is supposed to execute. (Any parameters after the first will
be passed to the program the wrapper is executing.) For security
reasons, the wrapper only executes programs located in the Majordomo
directory, /usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/. This restriction prevents a
programmer from using the wrapper to run programs that should not have
Majordomo privileges. (For example, wrapper /bin/vi would allow any
user to edit any Majordomo configuration file.) When a message is
sent to majordomo@host.com, Sendmail starts up the wrapper which, in
turn, starts up majordomo, and Sendmail sends the message to the
majordomo script via the standard input. Majordomo then extracts the
commands out of the message and responds appropriately.

2.2. Editing sendmail.cf

Due to its arcane syntax, sendmail.cf is perhaps the most feared of
all configuration files. In the installation of majordomo, it is not
absolutely necessary to edit sendmail.cf; however, a couple of
features are extremely useful. Unless major changes have to be made
to sendmail.cf (which, thankfully, Majordomo does not require),
editing the file is not that difficult. All that need be done is
adding extra lines to the file.

2.2.1. Another Aliases File

Creating a separate file for the Majordomo aliases, such as
/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/majordomo.aliases, is often a good idea.
This can be done rather easily by adding a line to the end of the
sendmail.cf file

OA/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/majordomo.aliases

To have a /usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/majordomo.aliases, Sendmail must
be able to generate a database (/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/major-
domo.aliases.db). The easiest way to accomplish this is to go ahead
and create an empty database for Sendmail to overwrite.

______________________________________________________________________
[root@kes majordomo-1.94.4]# touch majordomo.aliases.db
[root@kes majordomo-1.94.4]# chmod 644 majordomo.aliases.db
______________________________________________________________________

Another method to get around this issue is simply to create the major-
domo.aliases file in the /etc/ directory, rather than the Majordomo
home directory.

2.2.2. Undesirable Sendmail Security Features

For certain setups, some security measures that Sendmail uses can
prevent Majordomo from working properly. Obviously, these security
features must be turned off.

2.2.3. Sendmail Trusted Users

Sendmail is programmed to make it difficult for people to make
"perfect" forgeries of E-mail. For example, when a user sends a
message via SMTP, the source IP address is typically logged, and when
a user sends a message by giving it directly to Sendmail and
specifying the sender using sendmail -f, Sendmail puts a warning
message in the header specifying the user who really sent the message.
However, some programs need to be able to send messages masquerading
as other users, and having this extra security line appended to the
header is annoying. Sendmail handles this problem by having trusted
users. Majordomo must run as a Sendmail trusted user since the
program needs to send mail as other users. This feature can be set up
in two ways. The easiest way is to just add Majordomo to the daemon
group. To add the majordomo user to the daemon group, edit the line
in the /etc/group file from something that appears similar to

daemon::2:root,bin,daemon

daemon::2:root,bin,daemon,majordomo

Another way is to make Majordomo a trusted user by adding the line

Tmajordomo

to the sendmail.cf file.

2.2.4. Sendmail Restricted Shell

If Sendmail is using smrsh, then the only programs that can be
executed are those under the /etc/smrsh/ directory. Perhaps the best
solution to run the wrapper from the aliases file is to create a
symbolic link from /etc/smrsh/wrapper to
/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/wrapper.

______________________________________________________________________
[root@kes smrsh]# ln -s /usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/wrapper wrapper
______________________________________________________________________

A second solution is actually moving the wrapper into the /etc/smrsh/
directory.

______________________________________________________________________
[root@kes smrsh]# mv /usr/local/majordomo/wrapper ./
______________________________________________________________________

If security is not a major concern, the secure shell can be disabled.
One fairly crude method is simply to delete /usr/sbin/smrsh, and copy
or link /bin/sh in its place.

______________________________________________________________________
[root@kes sbin]# rm -f smrsh
[root@kes sbin]# ln -s /bin/sh smrsh
______________________________________________________________________

A better (but more difficult) method is to edit sendmail.cf. Change
the reference from /usr/sbin/smrsh

Mprog, P=/usr/sbin/smrsh, F=lsDFMoqeu9, S=10/30, R=20/40, D=$z:/,
T=X-Unix,
A=sh -c $u

to /bin/sh

Mprog, P=/bin/sh, F=lsDFMoqeu9, S=10/30, R=20/40, D=$z:/,
T=X-Unix,
A=sh -c $u

2.2.5. Group Write Permission

If you plan on having a non-root user add and manage mailing lists,
you will need to make the majordomo.aliases file that is group
writable. However, Sendmail will not allow this configuration for
security reasons (see the section on ``Sendmail Security Issues'').
To disable this security feature, add the line

O DontBlameSendmail=GroupWritableAliasFile

to the sendmail.cf file. Also, the lists directory must be group
writable in order to add a list, but Sendmail will not allow this
setup for similar reasons. To disable this security feature, adding
the line

O DontBlameSendmail=IncludeFileInGroupWritableDirPath

to the sendmail.cf configuration file is necessary.

2.3. Configuring sendmail.cf Using the M4 Configuration

For administrators who do not want to edit the sendmail.cf file
directly, it is possible to use M4 to create the file; this section
describes how to make the changes discussed in the previous section to
the mc file instead of the cf file.

The purpose of the M4 configuration is to provide an easy way to
create the sendmail.cf file. The idea is that the created mc file is
easier to understand than the sendmail.cf file. By running the m4
preprocessor, a sendmail.cf file is generated:

______________________________________________________________________
[root@kes etc]# m4 /etc/sendmail.mc > /etc/sendmail.cf
______________________________________________________________________

2.3.1. Creating Another Aliases File

Add the line

define(`ALIAS_FILE',`/etc/aliases,/usr/local/majordomo/majordomo.aliases')

to the sendmail.mc file.

2.3.2. Making Majordomo a Trusted User

Add the line

define(`confTRUSTED_USERS',`majordomo')

to the sendmail.mc file.

2.3.3. Disabling Sendmail Secure Shell

Delete the line that reads

FEATURE(smrsh)

in the sendmail.mc file.

2.3.4. Disabling Security Features

To disable the group write permission security check on the aliases
file, add the line

define(`confDONT_BLAME_SENDMAIL',`GroupWritableAliasFile')

to the sendmail.mc file.

To disable the path write permission security check for the include
files, add the line

define(`confDONT_BLAME_SENDMAIL',`IncludeFileInGroupWritableDirPath')

To enable both of these options, use

define(`confDONT_BLAME_SENDMAIL',`GroupWritableAliasFile,IncludeFileInGroupWritableDirPath')

Adding the last statement is equivalent to writing

O DontBlameSendmail=GroupWritableAliasFile,IncludeFileInGroupWritableDirPath

in sendmail.cf, and this entry is the same as writing the entries on
separate lines:

O DontBlameSendmail=GroupWritableAliasFile
O DontBlameSendmail=IncludeFileInGroupWritableDirPath

2.4. Sendmail Security Concerns

Security is inversely proportional to convenience; the only secure
machine is one that cannot be accessed by anyone. By disabling some
of Sendmail's security features, a machine will inevitably become less
secure. However, it is important to understand the basic security
risks in order to determine if the convenience is worth possible
breaches of security.

2.4.1. Consequences of Unsafe Group Writes

If a user has write permission to access an aliases file, she should
be a trusted user. By putting an entry into the aliases file (such as
the one used to execute wrapper) a user can execute any program with
the privileges of Sendmail (daemon or, in older versions, root). The
gaffe of this would allow people to remove or change the permissions
of files that belong to daemon (using the rm or chmod commands in the
aliases file). To some extent, this possibility is avoided by using
smrsh; however, one must still be careful as to what files are in the
/etc/smrsh/ directory.

Another issue that arises is that the user who can access the aliases
file can append or write to files that belong to daemon by using file
redirection (a >> or > instead of a |). Even so, this breach too can
be countered by adding a line to the sendmail.cf file that limits what
files can be written to through the aliases file. Add the line

O SaveFileEnvironment=/path/to/safe/files

to the sendmail.cf file or add

define(`confSAFE_FILE_ENV',`/path/to/safe/files')

to the sendmail.mc file. However, this maneuver only leaves a thin
layer of security between the user and daemon. A much better idea
would be to have the aliases file only writable by root and to create
an SUID root program to automatically add and remove the Majordomo
related aliases.

In the case of include or .forward files, commands or redirections are
run as the user who owns the file. Therefore, if a file is group
writable, a member of the group can execute commands as the user who
owns the file. In other words, any user in the majordomo group could
execute commands as Majordomo. However, since the majordomo user is
created without a shell, commands or redirections will not be
processed in include files owned by majordomo.

2.4.2. Consequences of Making Majordomo a Trusted User

If majordomo is a trusted user, then users added to the majordomo
group will have the privileges of a trusted user. If majordomo is a
member of the daemon group, users in the majordomo group will not be
trusted. It may be a good idea to make majordomo a member of the
daemon group, and create a separate group called majordomo for people
managing the Majordomo lists in order to avoid making majordomo a
trusted user. Also, by making majordomo a member of the daemon group,
the wrapper need not be executable by world. (The wrapper can be
executable by the group daemon, and Sendmail can execute it through
the aliases file since it executes binaries as daemon.) This added
security prevents users on the system from "feeding" Majordomo false
letters through the wrapper.

2.4.3. Consequences of Unsafe Group Writable Directory Paths

If a user has group write permission to a directory, for example
/etc/, the user could simply move any file and create a new one in its
place. An attack might go something like this

______________________________________________________________________
[mallory@kes etc]$ mv aliases ...
[mallory@kes etc]$ vi aliases
______________________________________________________________________

The user can then make her own aliases! This attack, however, could
be prevented by Sendmail's security checking for unsafe group writable
paths. Such an attack also would work with include and .forward files
having unsafe paths.

In the case of Majordomo, the user in the majordomo group already has
access to the include files, so this does not really compromise
security. However, an administrator should be careful to prevent
these undesirable unsafe group writable directory paths from occurring
in the future because Sendmail will not check for them.

2.4.4. Protecting Subscribers' Privacy

Unfortunately, sophisticated spammers can expand mail lists using the
EXPN SMTP command. For this reason, administrators should disable
this feature when serving mailing lists. Add the line

O PrivacyOptions=noexpn

to the sendmail.cf file or

define(`confPRIVACY_FLAGS',`noexpn')

to the sendmail.mc file.

3. Majordomo

Majordomo is, of course, the piece of code that this document revolves
around; it consists of a collection of Perl scripts with the sole
purpose of managing mailing lists.

3.1. Preparing to Install

Download the gzipped source distribution of the latest version of
Majordomo from http://www.greatcircle.com/majordomo/ and uncompress it

______________________________________________________________________
[jarchie@kes jarchie]$ zcat majordomo-1.94.4.tar.Z | tar xvf -
______________________________________________________________________

This will create a subdirectory with all of the files necessary to
install Majordomo; this directory cannot be the same directory in
which Majordomo is to be installed.

Majordomo must run under a specific UID and GID so when any of the
scripts are run, they will run under Majordomo's UID. Thus, it is
necessary to decide what UID and GID Majordomo should run under.
Also, Majordomo must be a Sendmail trusted user. (See ``Consequences
of Making Majordomo a Trusted User'')

Check the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files to find a UID and GID that
are not taken. For this example, a UID of 16 and a GID of 16 was
chosen. You have to decide on the location where the Majordomo
scripts will reside; in this HOWTO, the directory
/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/ was chosen. If you are using a shadowed
password file add entries similar to

majordomo:x:16:16:Majordomo List Manager:/usr/local/majordomo-1.9.4:

to your /etc/passwd and add an appropriate entry to /etc/shadow.

majordomo:*:10883:0:88888:7:::

Use the other entries in these files as a guide for exactly what
should be added. These are only the values for my system. If you are
not using shadowed passwords, only an entry in the /etc/passwd file is
necessary.

To create a Majordomo group, add the line

majordomo:x:16:jarchie,majordomo

to your /etc/group file. This will give you access to the Majordomo
files that are group writable. Also, you might want to add majordomo
to the daemon group to make it a trusted user (See ``Sendmail Trusted
Users''); to do this, change the line that looks something like

daemon:x:2:root,bin,daemon

daemon:x:2:root,bin,daemon,majordomo

3.2. Editing the Installation Files

The Makefile contains all the information needed to install Majordomo;
it is usually necessary to edit lines in the Makefile that refer to
system specific settings so Majordomo will be able to install cleanly
on your system. Most of the default settings are correct; however,
the following settings, almost invariably, need to be changed on a per
system basis.

______________________________________________________________________
[jarchie@kes majordomo-1.94.4]$ vi Makefile
______________________________________________________________________

The settings

PERL = /bin/perl
CC = cc
W_HOME = /usr/test/majordomo-$(VERSION)
MAN = $(W_HOME)/man
W_USER = 123
W_GROUP = 45

should be changed to something more appropriate for your system. For
example, in my setup, the values were changed to

PERL = /usr/bin/perl
CC = gcc
W_HOME = /usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4
MAN = /usr/man
W_USER = 16
W_GROUP = 16

Also the majordomo.cf file must be created. An easy way to create
this file is to copy the provided sample.cf file to majordomo.cf and
edit it.

______________________________________________________________________
[jarchie@kes majordomo-1.94.4]$ cp sample.cf majordomo.cf
[jarchie@kes majordomo-1.94.4]$ vi majordomo.cf
______________________________________________________________________

Again, most of the settings are correct by default, but the following
lines might need to be changed for your system from

$whereami = "example.com";
$whoami = "Majordomo\@$whereami";
$whoami_owner = "Majordomo-Owner\@$whereami";
$homedir = "/usr/test/majordomo";
$digest_work_dir = "/usr/local/mail/digest";
$sendmail_command = "/usr/lib/sendmail";

to something more appropriate such as

$whereami = "kes.emeraldis.com";
$whoami = "majordomo\@$whereami";
$whoami_owner = "majordomo-owner\@$whereami";
$homedir = "/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4";
$digest_work_dir = "/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/digest";
$sendmail_command = "/usr/sbin/sendmail";

$whoami and $whoami_owner do not need to be changed for Majordomo to
work; however, I changed them because I like to avoid typing capital
letters. $digest_work_dir is a temporary directory where digest files
should be placed; this directory should be assigned to wherever you
want digests to be stored. If you do not plan to use digested lists,
do not worry about this option. $whereami, $homedir, and $send-
mail_command should be changed to appropriate values for your system.
Unlike the Makefile, these options can always be changed after Major-
domo is installed by editing majordomo.cf in the directory where
Majordomo was installed. (The configuration file is simply copied
during setup.)

3.3. Installing Majordomo

The next step is to compile the Majordomo wrapper. The wrapper is the
only Majordomo component that needs to be compiled because everything
else is a collection of perl scripts and, therefore, is not compiled.

[jarchie@kes majordomo-1.94.4]$ make wrapper

To install the Majordomo files, execute the commands

[jarchie@kes majordomo-1.94.4]# make install
[jarchie@kes majordomo-1.94.4]# make install-wrapper

The first command can be done as the Majordomo user, but the second
command needs to be done as root so the installation script can SUID
root the Majordomo wrapper. (Since, majordomo was created without a
login shell or password, if you want to execute the first command as
majordomo, you will need to su majordomo as root in order to become
majordomo.)

3.4. Creating the Majordomo Aliases

Sendmail aliases must be created for Majordomo so commands sent to
Majordomo can be processed by Majordomo and the majordomo owner in
order that people can E-mail you through the standard owner-majordomo
address. Add the following entries to your aliases file. (See
``Aliases'')

majordomo: "|/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/wrapper majordomo"
owner-majordomo: jarchie
majordomo-owner: jarchie

3.5. Testing the Configuration

As a regular user (not as majordomo or as root), run

______________________________________________________________________
[jarchie@kes jarchie]$ /usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/wrapper config-test
______________________________________________________________________

This program can detect most problems in the Majordomo installation.

3.6. Creating Lists

To create a list, create a file with the name of the list in the
Majordomo lists directory. For example, to create a list called test,
create a test file as Majordomo

______________________________________________________________________
[root@kes /]# su majordomo
[majordomo@kes /]$ touch /usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/lists/test
______________________________________________________________________

and add the related aliases

test: :include:/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/lists/test
owner-test: jarchie
test-request: "|/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/wrapper request-answer test"
test-approval: jarchie

3.7. Further Testing of the Configuration

Now test the operation of the list by issuing a lists command to
majordomo.

______________________________________________________________________
[jarchie@kes jarchie]$ echo lists | mail majordomo
______________________________________________________________________

It should only take a second for majordomo to reply with a message
containing all the lists which are currently set up. Next, try issu-
ing a help command.

______________________________________________________________________
[jarchie@kes jarchie]$ echo help | mail majordomo
______________________________________________________________________

Majordomo should reply with a list of all commands that Majordomo
accepts. It might be a good idea to save the message for future ref-
erence.

To see if the aliases are working properly, try subscribing and
unsubscribing yourself to the list.

______________________________________________________________________
[jarchie@kes jarchie]$ echo subscribe test | mail majordomo
______________________________________________________________________

You will receive an E-mail message containing instructions on how to
confirm your subscription as well as a letter confirming that your
command was successful. After sending back your confirmation, Major-
domo should send back two letters--one letter stating that your sub-
scribe request was successful and another letter welcoming you to the
test list. The owner of the list will also be sent a message stating
that you have subscribed to the list.

To unsubscribe from a list, send a unsubscribe command

______________________________________________________________________
[jarchie@kes jarchie]$ echo unsubscribe test | mail majordomo
______________________________________________________________________

You should be sent back a letter stating that your command was suc-
cessful.

3.8. Creating Better Aliases

For some lists, it may be desirable to have Majordomo process messages
before they reach the list. For example, Majordomo has an option
automatically to filter messages based on content (such as taboo
words), or Majordomo can catch people trying to send Majordomo
commands to the list. To use these options, it is necessary to use a
better set of aliases such as

test: "|/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/wrapper resend -l test test-list"
test-list: :include:/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/lists/test
owner-test: jarchie
test-owner: jarchie
test-request: "|/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/wrapper majordomo -l test"

The last entry allows someone simply to send a message to test-
request@kes.emeraldis.com with the text subscribe rather than sending
a letter to majordomo@kes.emeraldis.com with the text subscribe test.

4. MajorCool

MajorCool is a web-based interface to Majordomo allowing users to add
and delete themselves from lists and manage lists that they own. The
installation is fairly straightforward; all that need be done is to
unzip the files, edit one line in the Configure script, and execute
the script.

4.1. Extracting MajorCool

The latest files can be downloaded from
http://ncrinfo.ncr.com/pub/contrib/unix/MajorCool/majorcool.tar.gz.

______________________________________________________________________
[jarchie@kes jarchie]$ mkdir majorcool
[jarchie@kes jarchie]$ mv majorcool.tar.gz ./majorcool/
[jarchie@kes majorcool]$ zcat majorcool.tar.gz | tar xvf -
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4.2. Edit the Configure Script

Open Configure and

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[jarchie@kes majorcool]$ vi Configure
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change the line that reads

PERLBIN="/usr/local/bin/perl" # How to start a perl script

to the proper location of perl

PERLBIN="/usr/bin/perl" # How to start a perl script

otherwise, MajorCool will not be installed properly.

4.3. Installing MajorCool

When running the Configure script, if the default choice for an option
is okay, simply pressing Enter will accept the default.

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[root@kes majorcool]# ./Configure
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The Configure script will ask you to hit Enter a few times, and then
it will ask for the location of Majordomo and some more questions
about the setup of your web server.

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What is the installation directory of Majordomo?
[]: /usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4
Will place the MajorCool programs in /usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4.

What is the path to your Majordomo configuration file?
[/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/majordomo.cf]:
Using configuration file name '/usr/local/majordomo-1.94.4/majordomo.cf'

Where would you like temp files created when MajorCool runs?
[/tmp]:

MajorCool needs to install CGI programs, support files, and icons in
your Web server directories.

What is the root directory for your Web server?
[]: /home/httpd

Where is the cgi-bin directory for your Web server?
[/home/httpd/cgi-bin]:
Will place the programs in /home/httpd/cgi-bin.

What is your server's URL for '/home/httpd/cgi-bin'?
[/cgi-bin]:

Where is the image directory for your Web server?
[/home/httpd/icons]:
Will place the icons in /home/httpd/icons.

What is your server's URL for '/home/httpd/icons'?
[/images]: /icons

Where is the root directory for documents on your Web server?
[]: /home/httpd/html
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The Configure script will ask other questions that are less critical.
(The defaults are fine, but you might want to change a few settings to
fit your preferences. Unlike some of the web-server questions, the
meanings should be obvious from the context.) When the configuration
file that the script generated from your answers is displayed, you
should accept the new version.

______________________________________________________________________
Accept the new version? [yes|no|list|edit|diff]? y
______________________________________________________________________

The installation script will install the MajorCool files and run the
majordomo cgi script which outputs the html file to the console.
Check to see if the installation worked by viewing the majordomo cgi
script from the web.

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[jarchie@kes jarchie]$ lynx http://localhost/cgi-bin/majordomo
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5. List of Terms

digest
a collection of new messages mailed to the members of an
archived list as one message. A list is called digested when it
is archived and, periodically, a digest is sent out.

GID
(Group ID) an identification number assigned to files,
directories, and processes to restrict access--similar to UID
except multiple people can be a member of a group. On Unix type
systems, groups can be set up (defined in the /etc/group file).
When a user name is a member of a group, she can access files
created with that GID (assuming permissions allow it).

MTA
(Mail Transfer Agent) a program, such as Sendmail, responsible
for passing mail from one location to another.

SGID
(Set Group ID) a file attribute which allows a program to run
with specific group privileges no matter who executes it.

smrsh
(SendMail Restricted SHell) the shell that Sendmail uses to
execute programs. smrsh puts restrictions on the programs that
can be run to make it safer than using a regular shell such as
the Bourne Shell.

SUID
(Set User ID) a file attribute which allows a program to run as
a specific user no matter who executes it.

UID
(User ID) an identification number assigned to files
directories, and processes--similar to GID except every user has
a unique UID. Every process must run under a UID (the one-to-
one relationship between the UID and user name is defined in
/etc/passwd). The process' UID determines what the program can
access. In general a regular user can change the permissions on
files that she owns unless the UID is 0 (the root user). In
that case, root can modify any files on the system.

wrapper
a program used to start another program; usually a wrapper is
SUID or SGID so it can bestow privileges onto another program
that the other program would not normally have.