I’m unable to complete my unsubscription from this list.
When I reply to the unsubscribe confirmation request I get the reply
‘your mail has no effective commands’. I’ve tried every way of replying
I can think, including plain text.
I emailed ruby-talk-admin and received this message…
your mail is too big
There is no subject or text of my original message to know exactly what
the admin’s reply is referring to.
I’ll try sending #off next as I’m taking an indeterminately long
vacation from the list.
Jose
Begin forwarded message:
From: [email protected]
Date: January 26, 2011 9:55:08 AM PST
To: [email protected]
Subject: Fml status report (ruby-talk ML)
Reply-To: [email protected]
your mail has no effective commands
please read the following help and send requests to
[email protected]
HELP FILE of [email protected] ML
----- Index -----
1 FYI: Brief Summary
2 Fundamental Usage
2.1 What is a mailing list?
2.2 Usage of Commands
2.3 When you confused …
3 Commands List
3.1 How to retrieve files; basic commands
3.2 How to get member list and unsubscribe
3.3 When your email address changed
3.4 Digest Delivery
3.5 How to retrieve past articles
4 Not standard commands
4.1 Library commands
4.2 whois database (ML local)
4.3 Traffic command
5 Command Usage Examples
5.1 Retrieve past articles
1 FYI: Brief Summary
Here I introduce the brief summary for you which may join this mailing
list in error.
To unsubscribe ML [email protected], send “unsubscribe” in the
mail body
to the address [email protected]. Also you can send “#
unsubscribe”.
“#” is prepended in fml documents for some historically reasons. “#”
is NOT NEEDED in almost all cases but fml can accepct commands with or
without ‘#’. Please ignore this in default configuration.
To stop the delivery for a vacation, send “# off” in the mail body to
[email protected].
To start the delivery again, send “# on” in the same way.
To get the past articles, firstly send “# index” in the mail body to
the address [email protected] to retrieve
the list of articles. It shows the list this ML stores. To retrieve
articles, use “# get” or “# mget” command. For example, send “# mget
100-200” to retrieve articles from 100 to 200.
Fml compares From: field in a posted article with member list. If you
have several mail addresses, pay attention!
2 Fundamental Usage
2.1 What is a mailing list?
A mailing list (ML) is mail forwarding mechanism. When you send a mail
to the address
[email protected]
the mail is forwarded to all members of this ML.
2.2 Usage of Commands
This ML server has a lot of functions. Please send English command
phrases/words to [email protected].
A command has a command keyword and the options.
command options
Depends on the configuration of the ML server, ‘# help’ and ‘#help’
may be treated as the same. (if USE_RPGruby-talkFLAG is non-nil) Note
that
commands are case-insensitive, i.e. # help = $ Help = # HELP [Option]
means optional. % is shell prompt.
Example 1:
--------- mail body --------------
help
Send “# help” to [email protected],
you obtain the help file of this ML.
Example 2:
To retrieve
help
articles from 10 to 14
--------- mail body --------------
help
get 10-14
exit
2.3 When you confused …
Please see the mail header, you will find the basic information.
X-MLServer: fml [fml 2.1_RELEASE](distribute + commands available
mode)
X-ML-Info: If you have a question,
send “# help” to the address [email protected]
X-MLServer: fml [fml 2.1_RELEASE](distribute only mode)
If you are confused and have no clue, you can take a contact with the
ML maintainer at the address
When you make the contact, you should write
What you did?
Error/ returned mails if exist
3 Commands List
The command syntax is
command description
[] is optional.
3.1 How to retrieve files; basic commands
help Get command help (this file)
objective Get ML objective
guide Get ML guide (non-members are allowed to use
this command)
msg Send a mail to ML administrator
summary [arg] Get a summary of ML articles
arg: range of the ML articles
Ex.
summary whole summary (1-last)
summary last:10 summary of last 10 articles
summary 100-200 summary of article 100-200
exit
end
quit Terminate command processing (so that your signature
will not get processed)
3.2 How to unsubscribe
skip Make the address of From: in your mail a posting only
address; mails will not be sent to this address any
more
noskip Reverse of # skip
off Sign off ML temporarily (stop receiving mails)
on Resume receiving mails after # off
bye Sign off ML permanently
unsubscribe Sign off ML permanently
3.3 When your email address changed
To change the address which you use to join this ML, you can use ’
chaddr’ command. The form is
chaddr old-address new-address
Please send this form from OLD-ADDRESS (fml 2.2 specification).
3.4 Digest Delivery
<<<<< Batch mail mode (approximately every N hours)
matome [opt] Send batch mail at approximately every hours
To be exact, mail are sent at N clock where
0 == N (mod <num>) N=1..24
When <num> is between 13 to 36, mail batch will be
sent once a day at
<num> if <num>=13..24
<num>-24 if <num>=25..36
Ex.
# matome <num>u plain(unpack) format
[opt]:
(no option) gzip(with UNIX From:)
u PLAINTEXT(with UNIX From:)
uf PLAINTEXT(with UNIX From:)
b RFC934 format PLAINTEXT
d RFC1153 format PLAINTEXT
mp MIME/Multipart PLAINTEXT
matome 0 Cancel batch mode. Return to normal distribution
Ex.
# matome 1 Mail batch every 1 hour (gzip-ped)
# matome 2 Mail batch every 2 hours (gzip-ped)
# matome 2u Mail batch every 2 hours (plain text)
# matome 2mp Mail batch every 2 hours (MIME/Multipart)
# matome 17 Mail batch once a day at 17:00 (gzip-ped)
# matome 29 Mail batch once a day at 5:00 (gzip-ped)
3.5 How to retrieve past articles
index Get a list of files which you can # get
Index file will be returned if it exists
get ID
send ID Get a ML article (sends back in plain text)
mget [mode] [interval]
mget [mode] [interval]
Get multiple files (ML articles or archive files)
Arg:
<range list> Ex. 1-10,12,15-100 1,2,10
first first:10 last:30 100-last (MH syntax)
<regular exp> Ex. * ? 1? 1??
[mode] gz tgz rfc934 b rfc1153 d unpack uf (default=tgz)
[interval] mail time interval if the reply spans multiple mails
(default=300)
Mode:
(No option) 'tar+gzip' -> spool.tar.gz
tgz 'tar+gzip' -> spool.tar.gz
uf PLAINTEXT(with UNIX From:)
gz GZIP(with UNIX From:)
rfc934 RFC934 format PLAINTEXT
unpack PLAINTEXT(with UNIX From:)
uu UUENCODE
d RFC1153 format PLAINTEXT
rfc1153 RFC1153 format PLAINTEXT
4 Not standard commands
These commands may be unavailable for maintainer’s policy. In default
fml disables these functions.
4.1 Library commands
To add a file to the archive area of this ML and retrieve them.
library command [options]
library index get index list in library archive area
library summary the same as “# library index”
library get [NUM] retrieve NUM file in library archive area
options used in "mget" are available.
library put add the mail to library archive area.
library unlink [NUM] remove NUM file in library archive area.
library delete [NUM]
library rm [NUM]
4.2 whois database (ML local)
whois [-h host] key Look up whois database with key
When host is given, look up is done on the host
through IPC. Otherwise the search is performed
in ML local whois database
iam Put self-introduction (ML local whois database)
who
whois-index
whois-list Get the list of available whois entries
4.3 Traffic command
SYNOPSIS:
traffic [-n <best?>] [-m ] [-d]
“traffic” command gives the traffic information.
5 Command Usage Examples
5.1 Retrieve past articles
In the following, ‘mail’ refers to /usr/ucb/mail, Mail(SUN),
malix(SYSR3/4) /usr/bin/Mail(4.4BSD), /usr/bin/mail(4.4BSD)
-
Get article number 1
% echo “# get 1” | mail
% echo “#get 1” | mail -
Get article number 100-200
% echo “# mget 100-200” | mail -
Get article number 100-200. In the case where the reply consists of
multiple mails, send each one at an interval of 30 seconds
% echo “# mget 100-200 30” | mail -
Get article number 100-200 in PLAINTEXT format
% echo “# mget 100-200 unpack” | mail -
Get article number 100-200 in PLAINTEXT (mail interval = 30sec)
% echo “# mget 100-200 30 unpack” | mail -
Get files matching ? (i.e. article 1-9)
% echo “# mget ?” | mail -
Get files matching * (i.e. all articles)
% echo “# mget *” | mail
<<<<< Explanation of the example
(1) Get the article of X-Mail-Count: 1 (article 1)
NOTE: All command mail must begin with ‘#’ If illegal commands are
found, the server will send back this help file
The following way is recommended:
% echo "# get 1" | mail <ML address>
If you want to get article 1-3
% cat > foo
# get 1
# get 2
# get 3
^D
% cat foo
# mget 1
# mget 2
# mget 3
% cat fpp | mail
Then the server will send article 1, 2, 3 in separate mails
The problem with this scheme is that, for each get command the server
has to start a sendmail process. Imagine you try to get 1-100
articles
in this way. It will be a big burden for the server machine.
The solution is to use # mget
For example, we want to get article 1-9:
% echo “# mget ? 30” | mail
Like ftp mget command, you can use regular expression. In this case,
? will match all files with single character file name, therefore it
matches 1 to 9 in spool directory. Likewise, * will match all
articles,
?? will match article 10-99
Mail interval argument is not necessarily needed. If a reply
is longer than 1000 lines, ML server will split it into multiple
mails every 1000 lines. In this example, the server will send
each of these mails at the specified interval of 30 seconds (default
is 5 minutes) This argument is usually used in the case like : you
only want to receive 2-3 mails for each UUCP polling interval. If
your
machine is IP-reachable and you are confident that it can handle
lots of incoming mails at the same time, probably you don’t need to
worry about this argument.
The requested files will be tar+gzip+uuencode-d. If the result file
is longer than 1000 lines, the server will split it. You’ll have
to concatenate them into one file, say bar, and then decode,
decompress, extract the original files from it (uumerge.pl is very
convenient for this purpose)
% uudecode bar
% ls
spool.tar.Z
% zcat spool.tar.Z | tar xf -
% ls
spool.tar.Z spool
% ls -l
rw-r–r-- … spool.tar.Z
drwxr-xr-x … spool
spool/ contains the files you want
History:
1998/08/17 translated by [email protected]
by [email protected]
1997/04/17 improved by [email protected]
1997/04/16 hand-patched by [email protected]
1997/04/13 improved by [email protected]
1997/04/05 imported and merged by [email protected]
1997/04/13 improved by [email protected]
1997/04/04 improved by [email protected]
1997/04/01 improved by [email protected]
help and help.example2 are merged by [email protected]
(preparation for 2.1 RELEASE)
help.example2 contributed by [email protected]
(mnews ML’s help is contributed)
original by [email protected]
$Id: help.wix,v 2.1 1998-09-06 14:29:59+09 fukachan Exp fukachan $
[email protected], Be Seeing You!
Help: <mailto:[email protected]?body=help>
Unsubscribe: mailto:[email protected]?body=unsubscribe
If you have any questions or problems,
please contact [email protected]
or
send e-mail with the body “help”(without quotes) to
[email protected]
(here is the automatic reply, so more preferable)
e.g. on a Unix Machine
(shell prompt)% echo “help” |Mail [email protected]