Computing

Add list members via data sources - web interface

This section covers using LDAP data sources to add list members. Please note, you must have experience of querying LDAP directories.

The Unix Section provides an LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) driven Authorisation Service which provides a DIT (Directory Information Tree) that contains all schools OU's (Organisational Units) partitioned at college level. These OU's are contained below the authorisation suffix and organised by college.

This service is available to users within the university's local area network and you do not need to provide a username and password. You can, of course, use a different LDAP service.

Login to the web interface.

Click on My Lists to show all the lists you own or are a member of.

Select a list you want to configure by clicking on the list name.

Click on  Data sources configuration.

First thing, choose whether you want to notify subscribers or not. The default is off and this is the preferred option.

You can choose to include list subscribers from a file held on a web server, from another mailing list or from a directory service.

Remote file inclusion

To add subscribers from a file on a web server, scroll down to he remote file inclusion section and enter a meaningful name for your data source.

Then enter the URL of the file on the web server.

Enter the username and password if required by the web service. If no username or password is required then leave these blank.

Leave the other options about SSL as the defaults.

 

List inclusion

To include subscribers from another mailing list on the list service, scroll to the List inclusion section and enter a meaningful name for your data source.

Then enter the name of an existing mailing list that you want to add as a list of subscribers to your list.

LDAP query inclusion

 

To include subscribers from a directory source such as the Central Authorisation Service or Active Directory then you can use the LDAP query method.

To include subscribers from a directory  service, scroll down the page until you see LDAP query inclusion section and enter a meaningful name for your data source.

 

The following is an example of a ldap query which returns email addresses of Unix Section staff:

short name for this source: Unix

remote host: authorise.is.ed.ac.uk

SSL ciphers used: ALL

use SSL (LDAPS): Yes

SSL version: tls

remote password:

remote user:

suffix: ou=people,ou=central,dc=authorise,dc=ed,dc=ac,dc=uk

search scope: sub

connection timeout: 300 seconds

filter: eduniOrganisation=ITI Unix Systems

extracted attribute: mail

selection (if multiple): all

The fields which you need to change are "short name", "suffix" and "filter". Once you have put in the appropriate information, click on "Update" at the bottom of the page to commit the changes.

Saving the configuration data source

 

For all the methods above, oncr you have added one configuration source, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Apply modifications to add your data source. You can then repeat the process to add others.