[olug] OT: Google Apps for Domains

[Christopher Cashell]

On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 2:25 PM, Jon Larsen <relayer at levania.org> wrote:
> If you have a couple mailman lists on your mailserver, but wanted to move
> to google mail handling, how would you use them with Google Apps for Domains?

Hrm.  Assuming the mailing lists were setup as list-foo at domain.com,
I'd probably start by trying to migrate the mailing lists to a
different domain, like list-foo at lists.domain.com.

If they're staying on the same server, it should just be a matter of
adding a DNS entry (MX), and some reconfiguration on the local mail
server and mailing list software.  If migrating to a different
machine, make sure everything gets migrated over (including list
archives, etc) properly.

Next, I'd look at the number of users and determine whether I can
easily push them to use the new address, list-foo at lists.domain.com, or
not.  If I think that would work, I'd call it good.  If not, I'd
create a Gmail/Google Apps user for the account and configure the
settings for that user to forward all e-mail to the mailing list
address.  I'd then start a slow push towards the new mailing list
address, deprecating the old one, but keeping it around until everyone
was using the new one.

This is a total back-of-the-napkin type plan that I put together as I
was writing this e-mail, so it could easily have some gaping holes in
it.  Also, it's been years since I've used mailman (most of my list
experience is with ezmlm), so there may be additional complications
related to that, which I haven't accounted for.

And of course, it goes without saying, all of this should be done on a
newly created test mailing list *before* any production/in use mailing
lists are touched.  It only takes a few minutes to setup a new mailing
list, send a few messages to it, and have it ready for testing. ;-)

-- 
Christopher