1st SMTP Server v2.8 serial key or number

L-Soft international, Inc.

Installation Manual for

LISTSERV^® for Windows

Version

This document sets forth a simplified installation procedure for LISTSERV  for Windows with a build date of June 8, or later. Supported versions of Microsoft Windows are described elsewhere in this document.

Information in this document is subject to change without notice. Companies, names, and data used in examples herein are fictitious unless otherwise noted. L-Soft international, Inc. does not endorse or approve the use of any of the product names or trademarks appearing in this document.

Permission is granted to copy this document, at no charge and in its entirety, provided that the copies are not used for commercial advantage, that the source is cited, and that the present copyright notice is included in all copies so that the recipients of such copies are equally bound to abide by the present conditions. Prior written permission is required for any commercial use of this document, in whole or in part, and for any partial reproduction of the contents of this document exceeding 50 lines of up to 80 characters, or equivalent. The title page, table of contents and index, if any, are not considered part of the document for the purposes of this copyright notice, and can be freely removed if present.

Copyright ã , L-Soft international, Inc.
All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

LISTSERV is a registered trademark licensed to L-Soft international, Inc.
ListPlex, CataList, and EASE are service marks of L-Soft international, Inc.
All other trademarks, both marked and not marked, are the property of their respective owners.
Some portions licensed from IBM are available at standardservices.com.pk
This product includes code licensed from RSA Security, Inc.
This product includes software developed by the Apache Software Foundation (standardservices.com.pk).

All of L-Soft's manuals are available at the following URL:standardservices.com.pk

L-Soft invites comment on its manuals. Please feel free to send your comments by
e-mail to: MANUALS@standardservices.com.pk

Last Revised 10 Jun

This manual is for LISTSERV Classic running under Microsoft Windows.  LISTSERV Lite users should see the installation guide written specifically for LISTSERV Lite.

This manual makes the following assumptions:

1.   You have a supported Microsoft Windows operating system installed and operating normally on a computer in your network that meets the various technical requirements listed later in this guide;

2.   You have physical access to the machine in question and are logged in as Administrator, or at least as a member of the Administrators group with full control of the machine;

3.   You can troubleshoot your supported version of Microsoft Windows (i.e. native OS problems, not problems related to LISTSERV) without assistance from this guide or from L-Soft.

Number three is particularly important.  L-Soft will be happy to assist you with LISTSERV-related problems arising under a supported version of Microsoft Windows (assuming of course that you have purchased support for our product) but is unable to assist you in setting up your operating system, the Internet Information Service (or any other web server software available for the supported Microsoft Windows operating systems), or any aspect of your operating system that is not directly related to LISTSERV's operation.  If you are not familiar with Microsoft Windows operating systems, please be aware that L-Soft cannot help you with either their installation or subsequent troubleshooting.

This manual also follows this convention:

"Windows" or "the Windows operating system" means the Microsoft Windows Server and Workstation operating system versions currently supported by L-Soft.  In other words, if we say "Windows", we mean "all of the Microsoft Windows operating systems under which LISTSERV is currently supported".

"Windows Server" means specifically the Microsoft Windows Server operating systems which are currently supported by L-Soft.

"Windows Workstation" means specifically  the Microsoft Windows workstation operating systems which are currently supported by L-Soft.

If we indicate a specific Microsoft Windows operating system by name, for example, "Windows 10", we mean specifically that version of the operating system and no other.

At the release date of LISTSERV , the following Microsoft Windows operating systems were supported by L-Soft for use with LISTSERV:

L-Soft LISTSERV Supported Microsoft Windows Operating Systems

Support for bit Microsoft Windows operating systems was withdrawn by L-Soft as of version a.

You will need to gather some information before you start installation:

·         What is the DNS hostname for the machine on which LISTSERV is going to be installed?  This is something like standardservices.com.pk .  It must be a fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) and it must map to an A or MX record as noted above in the networking requirements.  While it is possible to use a bracketed IP (eg, []) for testing purposes, as noted above the use of bracketed IPs in production is not supported and not recommended.

·         What SMTP server do you intend to use for LISTSERV's outgoing mail?  Like the hostname for the LISTSERV machine, this must be an FQDN hostname listed in DNS.  If you will be installing a compatible third-party MTA on the same machine as LISTSERV then the answer to this question is identical to the answer for #1.  Otherwise this must be the name of an external machine, i.e., one running sendmail or some other SMTP implementation that can accept LISTSERV's outgoing mail for delivery.  (If you will be installing a third-party MTA on the local machine, you will probably still want to identify an external SMTP machine to use temporarily to test LISTSERV prior to installing the local MTA, which is the recommended procedure.)

·         What are the email addresses for the LISTSERV maintainers (the person or persons who are authorized to create lists and operate/maintain the server)?

·         What drive and directory are you going to install LISTSERV into?  (The installation script defaults to C:\LISTSERV; if you have more space on another drive, e.g., a RAID array or other large disk, you will want to install LISTSERV on that drive rather than on C:.)

·         What program group or folder do you want LISTSERV's icons to be placed in?

Technical Requirements

There are three classes of technical requirements for running LISTSERV under Windows --hardware, software, and networking.  Please read each section carefully.

 Hardware Requirements

1.   CPU Architecture: LISTSERV runs under bit Windows on bit Intel architectures only.

2.   Multiple Processors: While LISTSERV itself will not use multiple processors (LISTSERV is a single-threaded application), overall machine performance may be enhanced by use of multiple processors if other applications running simultaneously on the machine can take advantage of them.

3.   Memory: L-Soft recommends that a dedicated Windows LISTSERV machine start out with a minimum of 8GB, as this will minimize paging and can lead to a marked improvement in performance, particularly if the web archive/administration interface (see below) is implemented.  In particular, LISTSERV servers running with the High Performance Option (HPO) require more memory than non-HPO servers and should therefore start out with at least 16GB.

4.   Disk Space Needed: LISTSERV itself takes up very little space (perhaps 4MB total for all of its default system files). When planning a LISTSERV system you need to take into account how large your lists will be ( bytes per subscriber entry in a given list) and how much space you will need for discussion list archives, which have the potential to grow quite large depending on your traffic and number of lists.  For most small systems, a 4GB or larger drive is probably sufficient for some time.  Larger systems will naturally require larger disks.

5.   Disk Architecture: LISTSERV will run perfectly well for most sites on inexpensive SATA disks of the modern sort. If performance is an issue, it will be greatly enhanced by the use of fast SAS disks in a RAID array with write-back caching and a write-back battery back-up. Write-through caching is not recommended.  Usually it is best to divide a RAID array into at least two partitions: A boot partition of 3GB (effective GB) RAID 0+1, and a data partition making up the rest of the available disk space at RAID 5.  If it is not feasible to divide the array in this manner, RAID 0+1 for the entire array is suggested.  (The boot partition can be larger if desired -- particularly as very large disks are much more economical than in the past -- but we would still recommend that it be configured RAID 0+1).

      With prices continuing to drop for modern data storage, the above should be considered absolute minimums and we would actually recommend starting with larger disks and partitions wherever possible.

      To date we have not done any testing with solid-state drives.  However we consider it prudent to caution against using SSD for highly-dynamic data such as LISTSERV's spool and archives.  SSD might profitably be used for boot partitions, however, where data (at least in comparison to LISTSERV's data) rarely or only occasionally changes.

6.   Disk Format and Security: L-Soft strongly recommends that LISTSERV be installed on an NTFS-formatted partition. LISTSERV will run out of a FAT partition, but FAT does not provide the same level of security and performance available with NTFS.

7.   LISTSERV in a virtualized environment: LISTSERV works very well in a Microsoft Hyper-V environment.  We recommend using a dedicated Hyper-V instance for this purpose, with service parameters adjusted to fit your local needs.  The same minimums noted above for physical servers apply to Hyper-V instances.  If you are looking for a high-availability solution for LISTSERV for Windows, Hyper-V with its failover clustering feature may be what you are looking for.

Customers have also reported success running LISTSERV in virtual environments such as Microsoft Azure.

General performance notes:

·         L-Soft STRONGLY DISCOURAGES running LISTSERV out of a RAM disk in order to speed up I/O.  This is not a supported configuration and if you have problems with it the support group's response will be to tell you to stop using the RAM disk.

·         If system RAM is tight, either a fast disk or more RAM is a necessity if you are to minimize I/O time lost to paging.  An otherwise fast system can become quite sluggish if it is required constantly to read and write to virtual memory. Adding more RAM is usually preferred as it is more efficient to access RAM than it is to access even a fast disk.

Software Requirements

1.   LISTSERV requires one of the Microsoft Windows operating systems listed in the matrix found in the Preface to this manual.

2.   Either Internet Information Service (IIS) or some other WWW server (i.e., Apache) should be installed on the machine if you intend to use the web archive and administration interface.  LISTSERV's web interface cannot be installed on a separate machine.  If you are using an older version of IIS which includes the IIS SMTP service, IIS SMTP should be disabled or not installed unless you intend to use it for inbound and outbound mail (in which case, please contact L-Soft support to receive a white paper describing how to do this).

3.   INBOUND MAIL: The SMTP "listener" service (standardservices.com.pk) provided in the LISTSERV installation kit must be installed.  Third-party SMTP MTAs (Mail Transfer Agents) are supported for inbound LISTSERV mail if they can be configured to redirect LISTSERV's mail to SMTPL running on a non-standard "high" port (for instance, ).

4.   OUTBOUND MAIL:  The standardservices.com.pk "listener" service cannot be used for outbound mail.  You will need to have access to an SMTP MTA that can handle LISTSERV's outbound mail. This machine can be a unix machine running one of the standard unix MTAs (sendmail/qmail/postfix), a Windows machine running Microsoft Exchange, or any fully-standards-compliant SMTP server running on any platform, as long as it can handle the amount of traffic you will generate with LISTSERV.

      Low-end SMTP servers can handle modest delivery loads (perhaps 10KK messages per hour, although we have seen a well-tuned IIS SMTP instance handle up to 75K per hour). For heavier delivery loads, L-Soft recommends a high-performance SMTP server that can handle loads of more than 1 million messages per hour.

      If the outbound MTA is running on an external machine, that machine must be configured to accept for delivery so-called "relay mail" from the machine running LISTSERV (it may of course otherwise be configured to reject "relay mail" coming from other hosts).

      If you need a "turnkey" single-machine solution for LISTSERV, please contact the support department for assistance.

Networking requirements

1.   24x7x TCP/IP connectivity, with enough bandwidth to handle your workload.  Please note carefully that LISTSERV is not designed to dial up and access POP mailboxes. The proper installation and operation of LISTSERV is contingent on direct connection to the Internet in order for it to receive and send SMTP mail.  If you do not understand this, L-Soft strongly recommends that you get expert technical advice before proceeding further, or consider using a hosting service instead of running LISTSERV yourself (for an overview of hosting services offered by L-Soft, please see standardservices.com.pk

2.   In conjunction with networking requirement #1, and as a fundamental requirement of the SMTP mail protocol, LISTSERV requires a static IP address which is mapped via a DNS A or MX record to a particular host name (typically standardservices.com.pkmain, for example, standardservices.com.pk). If you are planning to use the web archive/administration interface with LISTSERV, an A record is required at minimum (web browsers cannot connect to hosts that have only an MX record).  Please note carefully that L-Soft does not support LISTSERV servers running without DNS entries (i.e., we do not support servers configured with bracketed IP addresses instead of FQDNs [fully-qualified domain names, for example, standardservices.com.pk]).

      The use of a CNAME is STRONGLY DISCOURAGED because typically such hostnames are rewritten ("canonicalized") when mail sent from them traverses the Internet.  This will cause mail to appear to be coming from a "different" host than your subscribers may be expecting, even though in fact the A and CNAME records point to the same physical machine.

The modern Internet mail system is becoming more and more heavily dependent on DNS-based anti-spam protocols such as DMARC, DKIM, and SPF.  LISTSERV is designed to support these protocols and is capable of signing outbound email with DKIM (which is one of the keystones of the DMARC system).  For more information, please contact the support department.

      Microsoft's WINS and MAPI protocols are not supported or used by LISTSERV.

      There are no guarantees that LISTSERV will work with a dynamically-assigned IP address (for instance, one obtained through DHCP), and a DNS entry is required if you expect people to be able to send mail to, and also--in many cases where the user's ISP does a reverse DNS lookup to validate that the mail is not spam--to receive mail from the server.

      Again, if you do not understand any part of this requirement, L-Soft strongly recommends that you get expert technical advice before proceeding further.

3.   If installing LISTSERV behind a firewall with the expectation that users from the outside world will be able to access it, it is imperative that you provide access to the following TCP ports on the LISTSERV machine:  Port 25 (SMTP) and port 80 (webserver, if the web archive/administration feature is enabled).  It may also be necessary to provide access to port 53 (nameserver) if LISTSERV is unable to resolve the name of its outgoing mail host.  Opening other ports may be necessary for other features to work properly (e.g., port if your web server supports SSL/https).

      Installing LISTSERV behind a firewall is almost more of an art than a science (and every firewall seems to be different) but the bottom line is that the above ports must be open if you expect LISTSERV to work.  It is not recommended to route incoming LISTSERV mail through another machine (i.e., the firewall) as this normally leads to complications.

Older Versions of Windows Server No Longer Supported

L-Soft no longer supports Microsoft Windows Server earlier than Server R2. Only bit Windows operating systems are supported.

Older Versions of Windows Workstation No Longer Supported

L-Soft supports only the bit versions of Microsoft Windows 7, 8.x, and   Use of the Professional or Ultimate Editions is strongly recommended; use of the Home Edition is not recommended.

L-Soft provides its software via download only. The installation/evaluation kit for Windows (Intel architecture only) are found at

standardservices.com.pk

The LISTSERV installation kit contains a complete implementation of LISTSERV for Windows, limited for evaluation purposes only by the License Activation Key (LAK) that is shipped with it.  If you have already purchased LISTSERV you will have received a production LAK separately--we will describe the installation of that key later in this document.

 Starting the installation

First, place the distribution kit into a temporary directory (e.g., C:\TEMP or C:\SCRATCH).  DO NOT try to run the kit from the directory into which you are going to actually install LISTSERV.

Next, make sure that you are logged in either as the Administrator user or as a member of the Administrators group.  You cannot install LISTSERV unless you have administrative control of the computer.

The kit is a self-contained, self-extracting setup kit that includes all of the files you will need for the installation.  Simply run standardservices.com.pk from a DOS prompt or double-click on it in Windows Explorer to start the installation and follow the script.

Basic configuration

The installation script will ask whether or not you want to go ahead and configure the LISTSERV server.  You MUST do a basic server configuration at install time or the installer will exit, but bear in mind that a more complex configuration can be done after finishing the installation, if necessary.  For the basic configuration done at install time, you will need to have the information discussed below for NODE, SMTP_FORWARD, and POSTMASTER.  (Note:  This basic configuration step is skipped for upgrades, which are assumed to be already configured.)

Configuring the server after installation is done via the web administration interface.  Log in as a LISTSERV administrator, and choose Server Administration/Site Configuration/Site Configuration to enter the web-based configurator.

It should be noted that the MAIN\standardservices.com.pk file is now used only for initial startup and for certain settings which need to be read in immediately when LISTSERV starts; changes made via the web configurator are written to a platform-independent file which is maintained by LISTSERV and which should not be hand-edited.

In addition, the old standardservices.com.pk configuration GUI is no longer supported or provided (because it operates on the MAIN\standardservices.com.pk file).  If you have a copy from a previous installation, it should not be used, and L-Soft recommends that it simply be deleted along with standardservices.com.pk and standardservices.com.pk

NODE

The NODE setting is the fully-qualified domain name as registered in DNS for the machine on which LISTSERV is running.  As noted above, it is possible to insert a square-bracketed dotted-decimal IP address in this box for testing purposes, but L-Soft neither recommends nor supports this in production. This is the host name that LISTSERV will always identify itself with when it sends mail out.

MYDOMAIN

MYDOMAIN does not refer to your corporate domain.  MYDOMAIN is the space-separated list of all possible host names your machine might be known as. In many cases the value of MYDOMAIN is the same as NODE, but for instance some machines running LISTSERV also run the enterprise's World Wide Web server, and may thus be identified in DNS as something like "standardservices.com.pk".  And of course we'll assume that NODE has been set above to something like standardservices.com.pk  Using this as an example you would set the MYDOMAIN setting to contain, in space-separated format, all of these names that mail might come in to LISTSERV under, with the NODE value coming first:

standardservices.com.pk standardservices.com.pk standardservices.com.pk

Alternately the same thing can be done by specifying

%NODE% standardservices.com.pk standardservices.com.pk

This way if someone accidentally writes to LISTSERV@standardservices.com.pk, LISTSERV will recognize standardservices.com.pk as equivalent to standardservices.com.pk and will process the mail as if it had been addressed to LISTSERV@standardservices.com.pk  Otherwise the mail will bounce as LISTSERV has no other way to know what other names the machine might be known by in DNS.

SMTP_FORWARD

This setting refers to the name of the machine which will be handling LISTSERV's outgoing mail.  It must be a fully-qualified domain name of a machine registered in DNS.  For instance if your corporate mail gateway is standardservices.com.pk, you could set SMTP_FORWARD to that value. 

POSTMASTER

This is a space-separated list of userid@standardservices.com.pk type email addresses belonging to people who have authority to manage LISTSERV--specifically the people who are allowed to create lists, but also who have pretty much global authority on the server to look at lists, modify list headers, and so forth.  There are some advanced options for this setting but for right now you will probably just want to insert your own email address so that you can test the server.

CREATEPW

The password that will be used to create lists and perform certain management functions (such as administering LISTSERV's user password feature).  Note that when using the web management features, you do not use the CREATEPW= value, but rather your own personal LISTSERV password, to validate your identity.  See the main LISTSERV documentation for information on how to create a personal LISTSERV password.

MYORG (optional)

A string that identifies your organization in the From: line of administrative mail sent out by LISTSERV.  This defaults to the NODE value you coded above, but you can change it to be more descriptive, eg, "University of XYZ" or "My Company, Inc."  If you were to set it to "My Company, Inc.", the From: line of administrative mail would look like this:

From:         "My Company, Inc. LISTSERV Server ()"

              <LISTSERV@standardservices.com.pk>    

Only the part preceding "LISTSERV Server" may be modified by the MYORG setting.  The rest of this string is hard-coded and cannot be changed.

Advanced Configuration

There are a number of advanced configuration parameters that can be set to modify LISTSERV's behavior and/or tune it for better performance.  The most common parameters are found in the Site Configuration Keyword Reference document.

A tuning guide for high volume sites is available upon request; please contact L-Soft's support department at support@standardservices.com.pk for a copy.

For information about LISTSERV's DBMS and mail-merge features, the Common-Jobs Language Interpreter (CJLI), LDAP/Active Directory integration, and other extensibility features, please see the Developer's Guide to LISTSERV, also found on L-Soft's web site at the URL noted above.

Installing the License Activation Key (LAK)

If you are just evaluating the software, the LAK will be installed for you automatically.  Note however that evaluation LAKs expire at the end of each year, on December   If you have an older kit that you've had around for a while then you may want to either download a newer kit (recommended) or you can download a new evaluation LAK from the LISTSERV evaluation kit download page.

The procedure to install a LISTSERV LAK (either a new evaluation LAK or a production LAK) is as follows:

1.    Create a disk file with the license information supplied. If you received the license registration form electronically, simply delete the mail headers and other extraneous information (you do not need to remove the instructions found at the top of the LAK). If you received it via FAX or postal mail, you will have to retype the information. Please observe spacing carefully. To make the LAK easier to transcribe, we always insert multiple blanks where one is needed. Thus, unless you see a big white space on the FAX, you should not insert any blank.

2.    Make a backup copy of the file you have just created.

3.    Install a copy of the file under the name standardservices.com.pk in the product's main directory. This would be MAIN\standardservices.com.pk relative to your LISTSERV root directory (eg C:\LISTSERV\MAIN\standardservices.com.pk) if you installed LISTSERV under C:\LISTSERV).

4.    Start LISTSERV (or stop and restart it if it was already running). It will compile the new LAK, verify its integrity, and merge it into its license database. If no error was detected, it will then delete the standardservices.com.pk file. This is why you must make a backup copy of the license file before activating it. The LAK will of course remain in the license database, but you may need the original in case of hardware failure.

5.    Verify that LISTSERV is running with your new LAK by issuing the command SHOW LICENSE either by e-mail or at the LISTSERV command prompt (in interactive mode).

To start LISTSERV for debugging/testing purposes, first open a standardservices.com.pk "Command Prompt" (otherwise known as a "DOS box" to us old-timers) in "Run as administrator" mode.  (You will have to right-click the Command Prompt icon and choose that option.)  Next, change to the drive where you have installed LISTSERV, enter CD LISTSERV\MAIN at the prompt, and hit return.

You should now be able to start LISTSERV interactively by entering "LSV START" at the prompt and hitting return.  You will see various startup messages go by and then you will be prompted to enter commands if you wish.  For instance, a SHOW LICENSE command issued from the interactive command line looks like this:

You may start the standardservices.com.pk SMTP "listener" service interactively in the same way.

You can run only one copy of LISTSERV at any given time. That is, you cannot start LISTSERV interactively if it is already running as a service, or vice-versa, nor can you start LISTSERV in multiple CMD windows. The same applies to the SMTP listener.

When LISTSERV is installed, it is registered in the Services Manager to start automatically as a system service at boot time.  Thus if you have rebooted your machine after installing LISTSERV, it may already be running.  If it is already running when you attempt to start it in a DOS box, you will get the following error:

C:\LISTSERV\MAIN>lsv start

>>> Unable to create SMTP synchronization events <<<

abnormal program termination

Similarly, if the SMTPL "listener" is already running as a service, you will get something like:

C:\LISTSERV\MAIN>smtpl start

LISTSERV SMTP listener, version e

Copyright Eric Thomas

>>> Cannot bind to , port error

Statistics for this session:

 Physical memory: M (M available)

 Paging file:     M (M free)

 Process memory:  k in use

 Connections:     0 (max 0, total 0 in this session)

 Messages:        0 (0 recipients)

 SMTPL uptime:    0 (% CPU utilization)

If the services are running, simply stop them from the Control Panel/Services applet, or just issue the commands

NET STOP LISTSERV

NET STOP LISTSERV-SMTP

in your DOS box before proceeding.

If there are no problems, LISTSERV will start up with messages similar to the following:

C:\LISTSERV\MAIN>lsv start

10 Jun LISTSERV(R) for Windows version starting

10 Jun  Copyright Eric Thomas

10 Jun Build date: 8 Jun

10 Jun

10 Jun SIGNUP files are being compressed

10 Jun -> No entry removed.

10 Jun The network tables are outdated and must be rebuilt.

* Network tables generation process started - be patient

* Step 1 complete - DBINDEX file generated.

*                   NJE nodes, 64 dummy nodes, total

* Step 2 complete - NODESUM3 file generated ( bytes).

*                   10 countries, 3 networks, 59 ':internet.' tags,

*                   73 hostnames, total bytes of Internet<->NJE data.

* Step 3 complete - LINKDEF2 file generated ( links).

* Step 4 complete - no list/AFD/FUI entry updated for changed node names.

* Step 5 complete - SIGNUP files have been compressed, no entry removed.

10 Jun The peers tables are being rebuilt

10 Jun ->>> No entry for standardservices.com.pk in PEERS NAMES.

10 Jun ->>> Dummy entry generated pending official registration:

10 Jun ->>> LISTSERV@standardservices.com.pk - Backbone=NO, License

number=

10 Jun -> There are known servers.

10 Jun File standardservices.com.pkS has been rebuilt.

10 Jun File standardservices.com.pkX has been rebuilt.

10 Jun File standardservices.com.pkM has been rebuilt.

10 Jun File standardservices.com.pkM2 has been rebuilt.

* Peers tables rebuilt successfully.

10 Jun Nearest backbone host is LISTSERV@standardservices.com.pk

10 Jun Nearest NJE host is LISTSERV@CUNYVM

* Step 6 complete - link weights file successfully compiled.

*

* Network tables generation completed successfully.

10 Jun Nearest backbone host is LISTSERV@standardservices.com.pk

10 Jun Nearest NJE host is LISTSERV@CUNYVM

10 Jun License merged successfully:

> LISTSERV-WINNT-*

>          UNITS=4

>          EXP=DEC

>          REL=

>          OPT=EVAL

>          SERIAL=EVAL-NT

>          CKS=1-BFBC2FEA

*******************************************************************************

******************************* Evaluation copy *******************************

*******************************************************************************

*                                                                             *

* This  software is  an evaluation  copy,  provided to  you at  no charge  to *

* demonstrate the capabilities  of our product(s). You are  granted a license *

* to use this  evaluation copy until 31  Dec , at which  time the program *

* will automatically  exit with an  error message  every time you  attempt to *

* start it. The reason for this restriction is that we want to make sure that *

* you evaluate the  latest version of the software, and  not an obsolete copy *

* obtained from an outdated distribution.                                     *

*                                                                             *

* LICENSE: Subject  to the  restrictions set  forth below,  you may  use this *

* evaluation copy as you  see fit (and until 31 Dec ), as  long as you do *

* not derive a profit from such use.                                          *

*                                                                             *

* RIGHT TO COPY:  You may copy the  software as necessary to use  it, and for *

* backup purposes.  In addition, you  can copy and distribute  the evaluation *

* kit, IN ITS  ENTIRETY, provided that you  do not alter or modify  it in any *

* way, and that  you do not derive  a profit from such  copy or distribution. *

* Our copyright notice  must remain on the original copy  of the software and *

* be included on any copy you make.                                           *

*                                                                             *

* NO RIGHT TO MODIFY: You are not  allowed to modify the software in any way, *

* except for the  interfaces provided with source code, which  you may modify *

* and/or  recompile  for your  own  use.  Any  modified version  remains  our *

* property and subject to the present terms and conditions.                   *

*                                                                             *

* USE AT YOUR OWN RISK: THE SOFTWARE  IS PROVIDED ON AN 'AS IS' BASIS. L-SOFT *

* DOES NOT MAKE  ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY OF  ANY KIND WHATSOEVER WITH *

* RESPECT TO  THE SOFTWARE,  INCLUDING, WITHOUT  LIMITATION, ANY  WARRANTY OF *

* MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Neither L-Soft nor any *

* of  its employees,  officers  or  agents will  be  liable  for any  direct, *

* indirect or consequential  damages, even if L-Soft had been  advised of the *

* possibility of such damage.                                                 *

*                                                                             *

* FOR ASSISTANCE  CONTACT: SUPPORT@standardservices.com.pk, or  call +1 ()  (or *

* from the US or Canada).                                      *

*                                                                             *

*******************************************************************************

10 Jun Sent information mail to LSTMAINT@standardservices.com.pk

10 Jun Initialization complete.

10 Jun You can enter commands via the keyboard at any time.

SMTPL isn't as verbose.  It will start up with only a few messages:

C:\LISTSERV\MAIN>smtpl start

10 Jun LISTSERV SMTP listener, version e

10 Jun Copyright Eric Thomas

10 Jun Now listening to , port

10 Jun Initialization complete - concurrent threads.

To test the server, send Internet mail to the LISTSERV address with some random command, such as HELP, to check that the SMTP listener and outgoing mail interface are working correctly. Please note that the "LISTSERV address" is the address formed by "LISTSERV@" + the value you defined in the site configuration file for NODE=. For instance, if you defined NODE=standardservices.com.pk, the LISTSERV address would be LISTSERV@standardservices.com.pk

DO NOT attempt to create lists or use the WWW interface until the basic email functions (i.e., sending commands to LISTSERV by email and getting a response) are tested and working correctly.

Note that LISTSERV will not see any mail you send it via MAPI unless you have a MAPI/SMTP gateway for your LAN. LISTSERV does not include a MAPI gateway and thus does not support MAPI.

When running as services, LISTSERV and SMTPL both create log files in the \LISTSERV\LOG directory but, for performance reasons, the file buffers are not flushed with each and every write. If you attempt to TYPE the log file, it may appear to be empty. If you wait a few minutes, the buffers will be flushed and you will be able to examine the files. LISTSERV generates "crash reports" when it terminates abnormally, which are sent to the LISTSERV postmasters by default. These "crash reports" normally include a traceback of the error along with the last LISTSERV log entries prior to the crash, and should be sent to L-Soft support for problem resolution.

In interactive mode, the log files are also created but the file buffers are flushed continuously. Flushing the logs continuously ensures that, in the event of a severe program failure, the logs will always contain information about the cause of the failure.

(Due to the fact that writing to command windows can significantly slow down an application, interactive mode should be used only when you are trying to troubleshoot a problem.)

When running as services, both LISTSERV and SMTPL may be stopped from the Control Panel/Services applet, or by issuing the commands NET STOP LISTSERV and NET STOP LISTSERV-SMTP from a DOS prompt.

When running in interactive mode, to stop LISTSERV, simply type STOP. To stop SMTPL, wait until there is no more activity and type Ctrl-C.

Windows Firewall Considerations

It is recommended that sites using the Windows Firewall should open the firewall to the LISTSERV program.  This is the preferred method as it makes it easy to change various TCP/IP-related aspects of LISTSERV's operation (e.g., outbound mail port, TCPGUI port) without having to change the firewall.

For the standardservices.com.pk "listener", it is recommended to open the firewall on port 25 from all IP addresses.  Alternately, simply open the firewall to the appropriate program.  The only advantage to explicitly opening port 25 as opposed to opening the firewall to standardservices.com.pk or some other specific MTA program is that you can easily switch from SMTPL to another MTA or vice versa without having to worry about changing the firewall settings.  Port 25 is also a "well-known" port so inbound mail is in almost every case going to come to port 25, regardless of which program is listening on that port for LISTSERV's mail.

 Once the server is ready for production use (that is, once you have purchased and installed a permanent License Activation Key, and once you have arranged for LISTSERV to be started automatically when the system boots), you should consider registering it with L-Soft. Registering the server is necessary to broadcast its existence to the other LISTSERV servers and to receive automatic, periodic updates of LISTSERV's networking tables. Once you have registered, your server will also be sent periodic updates about the public lists hosted by other LISTSERV sites, and, similarly, other LISTSERV sites will receive information about the public lists you are hosting. Registration also makes it possible to assign the most efficient DISTRIBUTE routing path for your server.

In order to qualify for registration, a LISTSERV site must also:

·         Be running in NETWORKED runmode. If you have RUNMODE=STANDALONE or RUNMODE=TABLELESS in standardservices.com.pk, you must remove the RUNMODE line (or change it to RUNMODE=NETWORKED) and stop and restart the server before registering.

·         Be readily accessible via the Internet by e-mail from outside users.

·         Have a name that is unlikely to change any time soon. For instance, standardservices.com.pk, standardservices.com.pk, and standardservices.com.pk are completely acceptable (although we strongly suggest using "LISTSERV" rather than "LISTS" or "LSV", simply because that is what most users are familiar with), whereas something like standardservices.com.pk is not. If you are running a test server that you plan to rename later when it goes into production, do not register the server until it is running under its final name. Note also that a hostname containing "LISTSERVE"or any other misspelling of "LISTSERV" is not acceptable.

·         Have an A or MX record in DNS corresponding to the value you place in the NODE section (an A record is recommended at minimum).

L-Soft does not register sites running evaluation kits, LISTSERV Lite, or LISTSERV shareware. Requests to register such sites will be discarded.

L-Soft cannot register intranet sites since by definition such sites are not accessible via the Internet. Registration requires that your LISTSERV site be readily accessible via e-mail by outside users.

If your LISTSERV Classic site does not meet the above criteria, there are other options for keeping your LISTSERV networking tables current (which is the most important reason for registering the software). See standardservices.com.pk for more information.

You may submit an online registration form at standardservices.com.pk . If there are special considerations for your site that are not covered by the standard form, or if you are unable to access the web site, you can contact registrar@standardservices.com.pk to obtain a registration form. When contacting the site registrar, please tell us what operating system LISTSERV is running under so that we can send you the proper form.

Setting Up the Interface During Installation

It is strongly recommended that you set up the basic web interface when you install the software.  The installation kit will offer to do this for you; you need only provide the directory used for CGI programs and the directory and base URL used for LISTSERV's web files.

Note that you will still have to configure the web server separately in order to make the web interface work.  For that process, please see the links in the next section.

If you choose to set up the interface later, please see the next section.

Setting Up the Interface Manually

If you choose to install the web interface manually, please refer to the appropriate white paper depending on what version of Microsoft Internet Information Services you are running:

Configuring the LISTSERV Web Interface for IIS 7.x

Configuring the LISTSERV Web Interface for IIS 8.x

These and other informative white papers can be found on L-Soft's web site at standardservices.com.pk .

Complete information on installing the Web Archive Interface (including how to publish the content of "Send= Private" and/or "Confidential= Yes" lists) is contained in the Site Manager's Operations Manual for LISTSERV.

Site administrators can create a new mailing list, including the directories necessary for supporting the archives, in a matter of minutes using the List Creation Wizard. This wizard guides you through a set of questions about the type of list that you want to create.

To create a list using the List Creation Wizard, select ServerAdministration -> List Creation from the sidebar menu.

The List Creation Screen opens. Enter the ListName, the ListTitle, and then select the Create with Wizard option.

Click the [Next ->] button to continue. The List Type screen opens. Enter the ListOwner, and then select the type of list you’d like to create. Your choices are AnnouncementList, UnmoderatedDiscussionList, and ModeratedDiscussionList.

Click the [Next ->] button to continue. The Details screen opens. Define how subscriptions are handled and which users can send messages to the list. This screen will vary slightly depending on the type of list you’re creating.

Click [Next ->] to continue. The Archives screen opens. Click the ListArchives drop-down menu to define whether or not you want to archive messages posted to the mailing list.  (In addition to "No Archives", you will be presented with a choice of Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly archives.)  If posted messages are to be archived, then click the Archive Access drop-down menu to choose whether the archives will be available to the public or to subscribers only. Next, set the disk path to the location where the archives will be stored on the LISTSERV machine.  Finally, define whether to create the archive directories manually or to let LISTSERV do it.

OTRS can send out emails via Sendmail, Postfix, Qmail or Exim. The default configuration is to use Sendmail and should work out-of-the-box.

You can configure the sendmail settings via the graphical configuration frontend ().

Before sending, OTRS will queue all emails and let a Daemon task asynchronously handle them in due time. On a normal installation, the emails will be sent out every minute by the OTRS Daemon.

To check the status of email sending, you can use the console command with switch.

In order to filter the table, you can use argument, for example with ID of the send job.

To delete emails queued for sending, specify either switch, or with some filter active.

You can also manually send email without waiting for OTRS Daemon task to kick in. Simply specify the switch.

OTRS is able to receive emails from POP3, POP3S, IMAP and IMAPS mail accounts.

Configure your mail accounts via the PostMaster Mail Accounts link on the Admin page.

If a new mail account is to be created (see figure below), then its mail server name, login name and password must be specified. Also, you need to select the mail server type, which can be POP3, POP3S, IMAP or IMAPS. If you don't see your server type available as an option, the required Perl modules are missing on your system. In that case, please refer to Installation of Perl modules required for OTRS for instructions.

Figure  Adding a mail account

If you select Yes for the value of the Trusted option, any X-OTRS headers attached to an incoming message are evaluated and executed. Because the X-OTRS header can execute some actions in the ticket system, you should set the Trusted option to Yes only for known senders. X-OTRS-Headers are used by the filter module in OTRS. The X-OTRS headers are explained in this table in more detail. Any postmaster filter rules created are executed, irrespective of the Trusted option's setting.

The distribution of incoming messages can be controlled if they need to be sorted by queue or by the content of the To: field. For the Dispatching field, if Dispatching by selected queue is selected, all incoming messages will be sorted into the specified queue. The address where the mail was sent to is disregarded in this case. If Dispatching by email To: field is selected, the system checks if a queue is linked with the address in the To: field of the incoming mail. You can link an address to a queue in the E-mail address management section of the Admin page. If the address in the To: field is linked with a queue, the new message will be sorted into the linked queue. If no link is found between the address in the To: field and any queue, then the message flows into the Raw queue in the system, which is the PostmasterDefaultQueue after a default installation.

All data for the mail accounts are saved in the OTRS database. The command uses the settings in the database and fetches the mail. You can execute it manually to check if all your mail settings are working properly.

On a normal installation, the mail will be fetched every 10 minutes by the OTRS Daemon.

If you cannot use mail accounts to get the email into OTRS, the command line program might be a way around the problem. It takes the mails via STDIN and pipes them directly into OTRS. That means email will be available in your OTRS system if the MDA (mail delivery agent, e.g. procmail) executes this program.

To test without an MDA, execute the command of the following script.

Script: Testing PostMaster without the MDA.

If the email is shown in the QueueView, then your setup is working.

Procmail is a very common e-mail filter in Linux environments. It is installed on most systems. If not, have a look at the procmail homepage.

To configure procmail for OTRS (based upon a procmail configured MTA such as sendmail, postfix, exim or qmail), use the file and copy it to and add the lines of the script below.

Script: Configuring procmail for OTRS.

All email sent to the local OTRS user will be piped into and then shown in your QueueView.

In order to get email from your mail server, via a POP3 or IMAP mailbox, to the OTRS machine/local OTRS account and to procmail, use fetchmail.

You can use the in the home directory of OTRS and copy it to . Modfiy/change it for your needs (see the Example below).

Don't forget to set the to (chmod .fetchmailrc)!

With the from the Example above, all email will be forwarded to the local OTRS account, if the command fetchmail -a is executed. Set up a cronjob with this command if you want to fetch the mails regularly.

If you use the or method, you can insert or modify X-OTRS header entries with the PostMaster filter modules. With the X-OTRS headers, the ticket system can execute some actions on incoming mails, sort them into a specific queue, change the priority or change the customer ID, for example. More information about the X-OTRS headers are available in the section about adding mail accounts from the OTRS Admin page.

There are some default filter modules:

is a default module to match on some email header (e.g. From, To, Subject, ). It can set new email headers (e.g. X-OTRS-Ignore: yes or X-OTRS-Queue: spam) if a filter rule matches. The jobs of the Example below can be inserted in .

is a default module to pipe the email into an external command. The output is given to STDOUT and if the result is true, then set new email header (e.g. X-OTRS-Ignore: yes or X-OTRS-Queue: spam). The Example below can be used in .

is a default module that adds the possibility to parse external identifiers, in the email subject, the body or both using regular expressions. It then stores this value in a defined dynamic field. When an email comes in, OTRS will first search for an external identifier and when it finds one, query OTRS on the pre-defined dynamic field. If it finds an existing ticket, it will update this ticket, otherwise it will create a new ticket with the external reference number in the separate field.

OTRS SysConfig already provide 4 different settings to setup different external ticket numbers. If more settings are needed they need to be added manually. The following example can be used in to extend SysConfig settings.

is a default module that is capable to decrypt an encrypted incoming email message (S/MIME or PGP) placing the unencrypted message body in the email header X-OTRS-BodyDecrypted to be processed later. Additionally it can also update the email body to the unencrypted version.

In order to decrypt the emails the system needs to be properly configured for S/MIME and/or PGP and have the needed private keys to decrypt the information.

This module is disabled by default and it can be configured directly in the System Configuration in the Admin Panel.

Of course it's also possible to develop your own PostMaster filter modules.

This section shows some common issues and things to consider when troubleshooting Postmaster filters.