Overview

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Learn how to create and manage “umbrella” mailing lists in Mailman.

 

Critical Concepts

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There are some occasions where it is helpful to have multiple lists subscribed to a single "umbrella" list.

For example, the professor of a large lecture class may want to have individual lists for each of the individual sections of his class but also have a single list for the entire class. Rather than maintaining separate memberships for both the large lecture lists as well as the individual section lists, it is easier to make the lecture list an "umbrella" list.

"Umbrella" lists have other lists as their subscribers rather than individual people.

 

Steps to Take

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To create an umbrella list, create a list as you normally would.

Once the list is created, subscribe the "sub" lists to it. For example, let's say you want an "umbrella" list called "Intro101"; for your class and that you already have the following section lists created:

intro_001
intro_002
intro_003

The section lists should all have individual people as the subscribers. The Intro101 list, however, will have the following subscribers:

intro_001@ucsd.edu
intro_002@ucsd.edu
intro_003@ucsd.edu

Configure the Intro101 list to send password reminders to the list-owner's address rather than individual subscribers.

1. Log in to the list's administration page: https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/admin/ListName-l with your Active Directory username and password (replace ListName with the actual name of your list. The final character is a lowercase letter 'L' for 'list.')
2. In the General Options section, set umbrella_list to Yes.

Note: If a single subscriber is subscribed to more than one of the "sub" lists, they will receive multiple copies of any messages posted to the "umbrella" list. They will need to use a local mail filter to avoid multiple copies of the same post.