Authentication and Access Control in Sympa Mailing List Software

Sympa was designed to manage multiple mailing lists built on a common base, rather than being only side-byside mailing lists without any link between them. The system's architecture puts the virtual mailing list servers under the control of the various listmasters, each of which manages its own set of mailing lists. Like Apache’s virtual host, Sympa can manage numerous mailing list services (called Virtual robots) within a single installation. These virtual robots share the same code and a set of configuration files, including web templates and authorization scenarios, which means that only a limited set of parameters must be customized at the virtual robot level. The same inheritance principles also apply to the mailing lists themselves, thus making their configuration lighter.