ezMLM archiving and PDFs

[iscs]

I am going to start using ezMLM so send out a newsletter for an organization I am part of. However, this newsletter is in PDF. So far I can initially send out the e-mail, however, when it is archived by the ezMLM system, the attachment somehow becomes part of the body of the e-mail, and is totally unreadable. It looks like a bunch of binary data in the body of the e-mail. I was wondering if there was a setting somewhere to preserve attachments so people can get the newsletters from the archives. This isn't vital, because I can always post the newsletters on a website, but if there is a way to archive the newsletters with ezMLM it would be more convienient.

[Bruce]

When messages are transmitted, all that goes between the sender and receiver is a long stream of bytes. When there are attachments, that stream of bytes is divided into multiple parts. The attachments are written out in one part each, and any text you type in another. Also, the attachments are "encoded" typically using something called base-64 to turn the binary attachment data into plain text. The standard that governs this conversion and the subsequent interpretation of the data (to seperate and decode the parts) is called MIME -- Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions.

What you are seeing as "a bunch of binary data" really are the attachments as they were sent. The exact messages that were received and distributed by ezmlm (attachments and all) are preserved in the archive. In order to extract the attachments from that data, you need a MIME aware browsing tool. All modern mail readers are MIME aware (to varying degrees), however many of the tools you may use to browse the files stored in the archive will not be.

[iscs]

I know that Outlook is MIME aware (I've gotten plenty of attachments before). The problem is that at some point in the ezMLM system something goes away, or gets added that disrupts the MIME information. Since the exact data is passed to the archives, I would suppose that when I get a message from the archive (via listname-get.number@mlm.iscs.us) the data would be interpreted by Outlook (reading the MIME information) and show that there is an attachment. Only, when Outlook gets the data it displays it all as text. Looking at the e-mails I have got via this method, I think it may have something to do with the fact that ezMLM appeared to add "> " to every new line. The only thing I can think of is that this disrupts the MIME information as well as the encoded attachment. I am not too concerned about browsing the raw archives as none of the members in the organization will have access to the site via FTP.

[sheila]

The problem is that at some point in the ezMLM system something goes away, or gets added that disrupts the MIME information. Since the exact data is passed to the archives, I would suppose that when I get a message from the archive (via listname-get.number@mlm.iscs.us) the data would be interpreted by Outlook (reading the MIME information) and show that there is an attachment. Only, when Outlook gets the data it displays it all as text. Looking at the e-mails I have got via this method, I think it may have something to do with the fact that ezMLM appeared to add "> " to every new line. The only thing I can think of is that this disrupts the MIME information as well as the encoded attachment.
You are exactly right. When using the "get" command to retrieve messages from the list archives, ezmlm does modify the message. Ezmlm is not MIME aware, and it does disrupt the MIME encoding by adding the "> " to the beginning of the lines, plus some boilerplate text at the beginning of the retrieved message.

The messages as stored in the archive are exact copies of the messages as they were received by ezmlm, but when using the "get" command to send copies out in response to an email request, ezmlm does the modifications described above, which prevents MIME-aware mail readers from reading the original content of messages containing attachments.

As a suggestion, a possible workaround for this situation would be to maintain a web browsable archive. I've found Mhonarc to be relatively easy to set up, and it is MIME aware. I've sent photos, binary attachments and more to my ezmlm Mhonarc archives, and Mhonarc makes it all available on a web page. This might do the trick for you.

Searching on Mhonarc in these forums should turn up several previous discussions on setting up and using Mhonarc.

Here is one of those discussions:
http://www.aota.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14457&highlight=mhonarc