Warning! Please perform careful tests before establishing a gateway between a mailing list and a newsgroup which is not strictly local to your site...

Please report success/failure to the author.

What is the problem?

I consider it really unpractical to read mailing-lists using mail reading software; such software is often inadequate for that kind of communication (even though Mutt's "sort by thread" feature is a quantum leap for this matter). I prefer reading mailing-lists in the form of newsgroups. (NB: YMMV.)

A solution!

I therefore have created a few scripts that facilitate the set-up of a (bidirectional) gateway between a moderated newsgroup and a mailing list, with the help of the Procmail software:

• mkprrc, a preprocessor for easier production of a .procmailrc Procmail configuration file;
• mail2news, a Perl script which posts a message received through a mailing list into a newsgroup;
• news2mail, another Perl script which does the opposite job, by forwarding to the list address any article posted to the newsgroup. (news2mail actually acts as a Usenet moderator.)

Files here.

Warning! The Perl version of news2mail is untested so far. Please report any problem that you encounter with it. You can also get the old version (a Shell script).

To install a gateway:

• Create a moderated newsgroup (e. g. mail.my-list.) that will receive the list messages, and set up yourself as the moderator for the group. The moderator address for the group must be as follows:
  login+mail2news@host;
• Rename your existing .procmailrc (e. g. to .procmailrc.in);
• In .procmailrc.in, add a MAILING_LIST(...) line (the syntax is describred in mkprrc), and replace the # introducing comment lines with XCOMM;
• Generate a .procmailrc:
  mkprrc < .procmailrc.in > .procmailrc
• Test...

Back to the index

Last update: 1997-04-19