Administrative Policies

Every institution and business using networks computers will have its own administrative policies for data backup, error reporting, software access on the network, user accounts, and so on. Assimilating LISTSERV Maestro into the existing administrative structure is done through General Administration and Administrative Email Notification settings.

General Administration settings are available for each of the three components, HUB, LUI, and TRK. Each component can have its own settings for saving backups and logging activity. The Administration Hub component has additional general administrative settings for external processes to be run after a backup completes (see Section 11.2 Configuring External Post-Backup Processes for details). The Administration Hub also has a link to enable special email notification messages to be sent to a configured address or addresses in the event of a system problem and/or a system startup (see Section 6.4 Administrative Email Notifications for details). The Maestro User Interface has additional settings for transferring events from the Maestro Tracker component, job archiving, and runtime administration.

The Administration Hub component of LISTSERV Maestro acts as the backup master for all three components. This way, any problems that might arise from having different components that store data independently and reside on different servers is avoided.

The Administration Hub will centrally trigger a backup on all connected components (including itself) in order that the backup data saved by each component is consistent with the backup data of all other components. This backup is initiated based on the values entered in the Global Component settings for the Administration Hub. See Section 11 Saving and Restoring a Backup for additional information.

Each component can save its backup in its own folder configured in the General Component Settings section of the component. See Section 11.3 Configuring the Backup Location for more information.

These settings allow the administrator to influence the availability of the Maestro User Interface. For example, they can be used in preparation of the system shutdown for maintenance by disallowing new logins, disabling the Outbox to prevent outgoing jobs from being sent, and sending a warning message to users already logged on to the system.

Runtime Administration settings are found by clicking on the Global Settings menu, selecting Maestro User Interface, and then finally selecting General Administration. Use these settings to reach a safe shutdown state, where shutting the system down will not disrupt jobs delivery or users in the midst of preparing a job. Follow these steps to safely shutdown LISTSERV Maestro:

2.	Open a second browser and access the Administration Hub. Go to Global Settings > Maestro User Interface > General Administration. The General Administration of Maestro User Interface screen opens.

5.	In the top text box, enter an informational message such as "The system will shortly go down for maintenance, therefore login is currently not possible" so users denied login will know why.

In the bottom text box, enter an informational message such as "The system will shortly go down for maintenance. Please finish your current work and log out as soon as possible or contact the administrator" so that all current users will now see this warning at the top of every page they access and will know to wrap up whatever they are doing. Consider adding a message telling users exactly when the system will shutdown and for how long.

In the browser that is logged into the administrative user account, go to the Ongoing Jobs screen. All of the pending jobs will be listed in a table. Click on the State link to sort the jobs according to their processing status. Jobs that are in the process of sending will be indicated by a yellow arrows icon. Refresh the screen to renew the list. When the jobs have finished processing, they will no longer appear in the table after refreshing the screen. New deliveries will not start since the Sending is disabled option in the Administration Hub has been set.

8.	After all jobs that were in the process of sending have finished and currently logged in users have had enough time to wrap up what they were doing, LISTSERV Maestro can be safely shut down and maintenance tasks can be executed.

9.	After the restart, return to the HUB and uncheck the Sending is disabled and LISTSERV Maestro User Interface is locked options to make the Maestro User Interface available and working normally again.

Notes: When the LISTSERV Maestro Tracker component is shut down, all tracking URLs becomes unavailable, and all other tracking activity stops. Mail recipients will not be able to click on links in the message and no tracking events will be recorded. If at all possible, install the tracker component on its own server to minimize down time. Try to schedule system shutdowns at a time that disrupts the fewest users and the fewest possible mail recipients.

LISTSERV Maestro can be put into "Maintenance Mode" by setting the INI file MaintenanceMode = true and then restarting the component. While in this mode, no users will be able to log into the Maestro User Interface, so maintenance tasks can be executed. To return the component to normal, change the setting to false, delete the entry, or comment it out with a leading "#" or "!" and restart.

LISTSERV Maestro has many features that allow regular users’ activities within the system to be limited. Some limitations occur on a system-wide level, such as not allowing multiple logins from the same account and some limitations can be configured to occur on a system, group, or individual level.

User access to LISTSERV Maestro can be limited to a single login per account or allow multiple logins per account. This setting is located in the Runtime Administration section of the General Administration of Maestro User Interface screen. See Section 17.2 Disallowing Concurrent Access with the Same User Account for more information.

In addition, an advanced security option lets you limit the number of invalid login attempts, and when this is surpassed, lock the account and deny access. LISTSERV Maestro supports this form of login locking in the Administration Hub and in the User Interface component. For more information, see Section 17.3 Securing Access Against Dictionary Attacks.

Each of the LISTSERV Maestro components (HUB, LUI, and TRK) can be configured to restrict access based upon the IP address of the computer where the browser/email-client is running that is used to access the component. This means that it is possible, for example, to define that everyone (all IP addresses) is allowed to access the Maestro Tracker component, but only certain addresses (a local subnet, perhaps) are allowed to access the Maestro User Interface and Administration Hub components. See Section 17.1 IP Address Restrictions for more information.

Other user restrictions that can be configured at the system level are:

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Maximum size limit for an email message – Sets a limit for the total byte size of the message after all transfer encoding and MIME multipart wrappers have been applied. This setting can be set as the default in the Global Component Settings > Maestro User Interface > Default Size Limits. The default can be overridden by setting this limit at the group or user level when administering user accounts. See Section 7.4 Editing Account Information and Assigning Single User Settings.

•	Maximum file size for uploaded files – Applies to all types of files uploaded to the system including recipient lists, HTML and text messages, attachments, images, and so on. This setting is only available application wide. It is not available at the group or user levels.

•	Content Restrictions – Allows special AOL Rich Text formatting as part of defining an email message. If allowed, users can choose to include an AOL alternative in any HTML message created. This setting is obsolete and not recommended.

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Drop-in Content Restrictions – Creates a positive list for files and a positive list for URLs that are going to be used as drop-in content elements. This helps prevent security breaches into local files and URLs. If this setting is left blank on the system level, it must be set on the group or user level to allow those accounts to use files and/or URLs as drop-in content. If left blank on every level, drop-in content of these types will not be allowed. See Section 7.4 Editing Account Information and Assigning Single User Settings for more information.

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Recipients Restrictions – The top section, Recipients Type Restrictions, sets the type of recipients the user is able to use for an email job. If Disabled is selected, the option will appear grayed out in the Maestro User Interface, and the user will not be able to select it. If Hidden is selected, the recipient type will be disabled and will not appear at all in the Maestro User Interface. The default can be overridden when configured at the group and user level. See Section 7.4 Editing Account Information and Assigning Single User Settings for more information.

The bottom section, Recipients Upload Restrictions contains a text box for the administrator to enter allowable paths or path prefixes leading to files on a server accessible to the Maestro User Interface. These files are used for uploading "just before sending" CSV files for recipients definitions. If left blank, using these CSV files will not be allowed.

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Hosted List Restrictions – Under Global Settings > Maestro User Interface > Hosted Data Settings, check or uncheck boxes to allow users and groups to create Hosted Recipient Lists and Hosted LISTSERV lists. If the boxes are left unchecked, users and groups may not create such lists. If Hosted LISTSERV Lists are allowed, their connection settings need to be configured under the Connection Settings for Hosted LISTSERV Lists (see Section 4 LISTSERV and LISTSERV Maestro).

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Tracking Restrictions – Defines the type of tracking that will be available, by default. This setting can be set as the default under Global Settings > Maestro User Interface > Default Tracking Restrictions. To enable a tracking type, select Enable. To disable, but still display the tracking type, select Disabled. To disable and hide a tracking type, select Hidden.

Other restrictions can be placed on individual accounts when configuring Team Collaboration settings. Team collaboration settings allow the job owner to give or revoke privileges to group members affecting their abilities to create jobs, work on particular parts of jobs like defining recipients, and use jobs in reports. These settings can be configured at a default level for all jobs that an account owns under user settings for an account, and they can be set at the job level for individual jobs.

LISTSERV Maestro can send email messages to one or more email addresses in the event of a system problem or system startup. Once configured, errors and/or startups that occur on any component will trigger a message. If an error occurs on three components, three separate messages will sent to each configured recipient address.

In addition, the option to send an email after system problems also controls whether or not to send notification after each backup to inform you of its success or failure.

Finally, LISTSERV Maestro also gives you the ability to define different SMTP servers and ports used for the email notifications for each component.

To configure administrative email messages, click on the Global Settings menu, select Administration HUB, and then finally select Administrative E-mail Notifications.

To have administrative email notifications sent, select the option to send email notifications. If notification is desired for system start, select Send a notification email in the event of sever system problems, and optionally:, and then check Send notification e-mail at each startup. The following settings need to be configured to use email notifications:

•	SMTP Host – Enter the host name running the SMTP server that will be used for the mailing. This field is mandatory and must be filled out with a valid host name that can be used to send e-mail notification by the LISTSERV Maestro component that encounters a severe problem.

•	SMTP Port – Enter the SMTP port on which the SMTP server on the host specified above listens for SMTP connections. This field is optional; if left empty, the standard SMTP port "25" is used.

Important: If you only supply the default SMTP host and port in this section, then this host / port must be reachable from all servers running one of the LISTSERV Maestro components. If not all component servers can reach this host by using this name and port (for example due to firewalls or DNS or other networking-related issues), then supply the custom SMTP Host / Port (see below for details).

In the Custom SMTP Hosts and Ports for LUI / TRK section on the Administrative Email Notifications screen:

•	To use the default SMTP host name and port supplied in the section above, then select the Use Default SMTP host and port as defined above option from both the LUI and TRK drop-down menus.

•	If the default SMTP host name and port supplied in the section above can not be used for all LISTSERV Maestro components, then use the settings in this section to supply SMTP host names and/or ports for LUI and/or TRK.

•	LUI SMTP Host / Port – If you want to supply a custom SMTP host and/or port for the Maestro User Interface component, then choose the Use SMTP Host and port as supplied below option, and then supply SMTP host/or port that the LUI component will use for notifications.

•	TRK SMTP Host / Port – If you want to supply a custom SMTP host and/or port for the Maestro Tracker component, then choose the Use SMTP Host and port as supplied below option, and supply the SMTP host/port that the TRK component shall use for notifications.

•	Sender Address – Enter a sender address that will be used as the sender address for all the email notifications. This field is mandatory and must be filled out with a valid Internet email address.

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Notification email will be sent to the following addresses – Specify at least one valid Internet email address that will be the recipient of the notifications sent from LISTSERV Maestro. This field is mandatory. Multiple addresses can be entered, one per row, with no separator characters. All addresses entered here will appear in the “To:” field of the email notification, so each recipient will be able to see the addresses of all other recipients.

Tip: You can create a LISTSERV List to distribute notifications as well as archive them. Simply use the list address in this field and add as many addresses as needed to the LISTSERV List.

It is important to test the settings for email notifications to make sure that they do work, and that the specified addresses receive the mail sent by the system. This verification is done with the Send a test email to the addresses listed above checkbox.

Checking this option, and then submitting the page by clicking [OK], will send a test email to all recipients specified. A test email will be generated by each of the LISTSERV Maestro components so that each of the addresses will receive three different test messages, one from each component.

As the next step, verify that all specified addresses received three test-notification email messages. If this is not the case, then the notification sending needs some troubleshooting. Follow these steps to troubleshoot the email notification settings:

•	“Administrative email notifications have been enabled. This message is for testing that administrative email notifications have been enabled correctly, there is no problem with the application!”

•	If this message does not appear, then the Send a test email to the addresses listed above checkbox was not actually checked when the page was submitted, or the [OK] button was not clicked and the screen was exited by the [Cancel] button or any of the shortcut icons.

•	If the message above appears in the log file, then check the log file for an error message that appears right after the message quoted above. The error message will read: “Error when trying to send notification email about previous log entry: Error description here...”

•	The error description will provide an idea of what needs to be changed to make the messaging work (for example, the error could be caused by an incorrect host name or SMTP port).

•	If the first message appears in the logs, but not the second (the error message), LISTSERV Maestro presumes the email notification was successfully sent. If this happens, take a closer look at the SMTP server and the other components in the mail delivery chain to find out where the mail got lost.

Translations for the Subscriber Pages are maintained externally with the L-Soft Resource Translation Tool and are made available to LISTSERV Maestro as JAR files. New versions of these files are loaded by the system during startup. If you want to reload the translation JAR files without restarting the system, open a browser and access the Administration Hub. Then, click on Global Settings > Maestro User Interface > General Administration. The General Administration of Maestro User Interface screen opens. In the Subscriber Access Page Translations section, click the [Refresh Translations Now] button.