Listar is written under Linux, but is tested and runs under BSD and Solaris systems as well. Check the PLATFORMS file for more info.

The current CHANGELOG from the CVS archive (or at least a reasonably current one) is here if you want to see what Listar development is looking like lately. :)

The PLATFORMS file (a list of what platforms Listar has been successfully run on that we know of) is available here from the current archive.

What is Listar?

The original author of Listar, Jeremy Blackman, had gotten fed up with certain aspects of the majordomo mailing list software. He decided to write a small mailing list package for his own use. However, as he continued to work on it, several people began contributing concepts that they felt would be nice to have in a mailing list package. One, Jeremy's friend JT Traub, began helping code the package as well.

Listar is designed to meet the following criteria (methods of meeting them indented below):

Must not require any special system privileges to run.

Listar has an SMTP client built in and thus does not need root, mail, or daemon permissions to change the sender.

Listar does prefer to run suid to a dedicated user, however, to ensure it owns all files under one user. This user does not have to have any particular special permissions, though.

Must not be in an interpreted language, but must be easily extendable.

Listar is written entirely in ANSI C, but uses a modular setup which allows new functionality to be created as a dynamic library following a certain API, and dropped into the Listar modules directory. For systems not having dynamic library capabilities, modules can be compiled into the base binary. (All platforms listed in the PLATFORMS file support dynamic modules, unless otherwise specified.)

The code is also reasonably clean (having now been ported to SunOS 4 and 5 from the original Linux version), so it should be easily portable to additional systems.

Listar needs to be easily configurable from a user standpoint, not just an admin standpoint.

Listar can be set up to use a secured remote-administration method so that list admins can retrieve their list configuration files and send them back.

Users can set flags on their individual subscriptions, such as VACATION, which prevents mail from being sent to their account until they unset the flag. (Nice alternative to having to unsubscribe when leaving for a while.)

A few recent and/or pending changes

These are changes that have either been added recently (and may not be in the current version on the FTP site) or will be added soon:

Smarter sendmail behavior - unlike most mailing list packages, listar will sort outgoing address by domain, thus reducing the number of connections to any given mailserver.
In v0.107a and up.

CC-lists: a mailing list can automatically cc another list without having to have the second mailing list address subscribed to the first one. This is useful for paired discussion/announce lists, where everyone on the discussion list will want to receive the announcements, but the reverse is not necessarily true. Duplicated addresses will automatically be removed in such a case.
In v0.107a and up.

Scriptable blacklisting: an ability to set up smart blacklist behavior to keep lists free of spammers and annoying people.
Still pending, hopefully next release

Statistics/accounting: an ability to have monthly accounting reports sent to the list owner, telling the number of subscribes, unsubscribes, attempted posts, succeeded posts, and other information.
Still pending, hopefully next release

Sounds cool. Can I get a copy?

Sure! Listar is available at ftp://ftp.nausicaa.net/pub/listar. The archives of the various support lists are there as well.

Support lists? How do I get on them?

Not surprisingly, the support lists are run on Listar. To subscribe to any of the lists, send mail to listar@nausicaa.net with 'subscribe <listname>' in the message. For example, 'subscribe listar-support'.

The three lists are listar-dev (for those interested in the development side of Listar, or helping to write it), listar-bugs (for reporting bugs in the software), and listar-support (for general support and new release announcements).

You're looking for more developers?

We welcome input or patches/suggestions, or new modules for Listar. :) If you're interested, subscribe to the listar-dev list and talk to us. :)

I'm not a programmer, but I want to help somehow.

Do you write good documentation? Listar really needs a manual, and neither of the developers can write documentation that well. Cash donations? :) Whatever you want to contribute is fine.

Thanks are due zac@pixelgeek.com for a new logo for the Listar pages.

Listar is (C)1998 Jeremy Blackman and JT Traub.