How do I get a listserv on my vanity domain?

November 4, 2005 12:17 PM

How do I set up a small-volume moderated mailing list with my own domain name? Essentially, I want Google Groups except @ my domain name.

Currently I manually forward incoming messages to the roughly 120 people who subscribe with the whole list in the BCC box.

I just moved to a new hosting provider (1and1), who are not allowing me to put that many people in the BCC field either in my mail client or through their webmail.

I am willing to move to a new hosting provider if necessary (recommendations?), but I was wondering if there was a more portable way of doing this, so I'm not tied into a single provider.

I'd prefer not to have to set up my own mail server (which I worry might run afoul of my ISP's anti-spam rules anyway.)

Any other pitfalls to be aware of?

posted by PadrePuffin to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Some hosting providers will have mailing lists as part of the package; mine (Dreamhost) offers Mailman (Python; web-based admin interface), for example.
posted by mcwetboy at 12:29 PM on November 4, 2005

Dreamhost's cheapest plan is available for less than $5 a month when you sign up for two years with dicounts codes widely available on the web. Plus they include one free domain registration.
posted by Mitheral at 12:49 PM on November 4, 2005

8-95.com offers Majordomo listservs which supports moderation. Their cheapest plan is $8.95/Twice a Year Plan. Listserv management is done directly from your site control panel, so there's little know-how required. I host several sites with them.
posted by Loser at 1:34 PM on November 4, 2005

Using gMail to Create a Mailing List
Google groups is fine for creating a mailing list, but it does not allowed message of more than 1MB. GMail is awesome, but there not easy ways to create a group of contact (unless you do what is explained above)

So here is a way to create a mailing list with GMail, so all your friends (or group) can use it easily.

1) Create a new GMail adress. For exemple [email address]

2) In this adress create a filter for each member that forward every mail send to [email address] , to the member's adress. It should be something like that :
Matches: to:([email address])
Do this: Skip Inbox, Forward to [email address]

(create one filter for every "members")

3) Now just send an e-mail to [email address] and every users that are registered will get a copy of it. And even better, every one can use it ! so it does work just like a mailing list.

You now have a Google Group that allows 10MB messages !

Hints
And since you can simply alter GMail adress, you can create some restricted groups on the same adress : If you want some message to be redirected to a smaller group, create a filter that forward every mail sent to [email address] to the selected members.

Many domain registrars will provide you with free email forwarding to your gmail account. To use your own domain to send mail, go to your gMail Mail Settings: Accounts: Send mail as: Add another email address
posted by fourstar at 1:56 PM on November 4, 2005

Mailman. It is the bees knees of mailing lists. Any good hosting company will provide it in their cPanel interface.
posted by polyglot at 6:58 PM on November 4, 2005