Mailman PostAuth

This module provides an efficient spam protection method based on an additional web-based confirmation step for an open mailing list using Mailman.

INTRODUCTION

An open mailing list which accepts messages posted by non-members still has several use cases. For example, we keep an open mailing list as the contact address of our office. There are two reasons why we employ a mailing list for the contact address instead of a simple mail alias. The first reason is necessity of the archive of the messages posted to the contact address. If a mail alias is employed as the contact address, all messages posted to the contact address are delivered into private mailboxes of the office members, and a rookie cannot see them. At least, the official archive of these messages is necessarily for taking over duties between the office members. The second reason is inter-operability between web-based non-mail communication methods such as a bug tracking system, a chat system, and a wiki system. When you must refer a specific message posted to the contact address from a non-mail communication method, the unique URL of the message is necessary. The web-based archive of these messages can provide it.

An open mailing list, however, has a big problem: it is weak against mass-mailing of spammers. In order to resolve this problem, this module provides an additional web-based confirmation procedure to protect an open mailing list using Mailman against messages posted by bots.

This module mainly consists of two programs:

• The controller CGI script: action
• The moderation message upload script: mmpostauth-handler

The above two programs implements the following procedure:

1. The moderation message upload script transfers a moderation message, which is generated by Mailman when a non-member posts a message to the open mailing list, into the controller CGI script.
2. The controller CGI script generates a temporary confirmation URL and notifies it to the non-member who posted the original message.
3. If someone accesses the confirmation URL, the controller CGI considers that the non-member is not a bot and is a real human, and asks Mailman to deliver the original message by sending an approval command mail.

INSTALL

1. It is necessary to decide the base URL of this module. If you can access your own controller CGI as https://www.example.net/mmpostauth/action, this URL is your base URL.

2. Install mod_fcgid and required perl modules.

$ apt-get install libapache2-mod-fcgid libfcgi-perl libwww-perl libhtml-template-perl libcgi-session-perl libconfig-simple-perl libio-stringy-perl libmail-dkim-perl libdbix-class-perl libdbix-class-timestamp-perl libdbd-sqlite3-perl libdatetime-format-sqlite-perl

3. Confirm whether the controller CGI script works as a fcgid script. If you see "OK" when you access the status URL (the base URL + /status), the controller CGI script will work properly.

4. Confirm the regular expression which matches the server where the moderation message upload script works. The following example accepts the servers whose IP addresses match 192.168.0.0/16.

SetEnvIf Request_URI "/action/post$" post_action
SetEnvIf Remote_Addr "^192\.168\." !post_action
<Files action>
    SetHandler fcgid-script
    Order Allow,Deny
    Allow from all
    Deny from env=post_action
</Files>

5. Put the moderator's password of the target open mailing list into the configuration file mmpostauth.ini as follows:

[[email protected]]
password = write_moderation_password_here

6. Add the moderation message upload script to the alias database /etc/aliases like:

mmpostauth: |"/somewhere/mmpostauth-handler --url https://www.example.net/mailman/action/post"

This alias database entry means that all messages for mmpostauth are transferred to the controller CGI script through the upload script. You must give the right upload URL (the base URL + /post) to the upload script with --url option.

7. Add the mail address which points the above alias database entry (like [email protected]) as the moderator of the target open mailing list.

8. Send a test message to the target open mailing list. You will receive a notification message which contains the temporary confirmation URL (the base URL + /confirm/ + random sequence).