Mailing Lists

Instead of the aliases file, mailing lists may also be managed by means a forwardfile director. The lists are all kept in a single directory such as /etc/exim/lists/, and a mailing list named nag-bugs is described by the file lists/nag-bugs. This should contain the members' addresses separated by commas or newlines. Lines beginning with a hash sign (#) are treated as comments. A simple director to use such data is as follows:

lists:

 driver = forwardfile

 file = /etc/exim/lists/${local_part}

 no_check_local_user

 errors_to = ${local_part}-request

When this director runs, the values of the file and errors_to options are expanded. Expansion causes certain portions of the strings beginning with dollar characters to be replaced every time the string is used. The simplest kind of expansion is the insertion of the value of one of Exim's variables, and this is what is happening here. The substring ${local_part} substitutes the value of the $local_part, which is the local part of the address that is being processed.

For each mailing list, a user (or alias or mailing list) named listname-request should exist; any errors occurring when resolving an address or delivering to a list member are reported to this address.