Note: No matter what options are specified, the index files are always rewritten. The date when Hypermail was last run is included in index pages, so it's easy to tell when the archive was last updated.

Note: The -i and -m options cannot be used together. Only archives in UNIX mailbox format can be read in - mailboxes of this kind are usually appended RFC2822-compliant articles separated by lines such as "\nFrom person@site Mon Jan 10 12:34:56 1994".

Note: If the mailbox that is being read from is an archive that new messages are always being added to, don't use the -u or -x options. Hypermail will then read in all the messages given it but will only write new messages that have been appended to the mailbox.

Note: If the -u option is used and articles are read in from a mailbox file, Hypermail will assume that the file contains only one article, no matter how many files the mailbox may actually contain. Make sure that Hypermail is given only one article when using this option.

The following settings can be read in as environment variables or from the specified configuration file. Environment settings are in uppercase. For instance, in the C shell, variables can be set as:

setenv HM_MBOX /home/john/my_mailbox

setenv HM_FILEMODE 0600

In the configuration file, blank lines and lines beginning with a hash mark (#) are ignored. Variables must be in lowercase and separated by values with an equals (=) sign, such as:

mbox = /home/john/my_mailbox

filemode = 0600

Settings are read in this order: from the program's hard-wired internal defaults, from environment variables, from command-line options, from the configuration file.

See hmrc.4 for more information on configuration file usage.

Below is a list of variables that Hypermail understands. Boolean numbers can have the value of 0 or 1.

HM_CONFIGFILE filename

This is the default configuration file to read settings in from. This can only be specified as an environment variable. If the first character is "~", Hypermail will look for the file under the current user's home directory.

HM_MBOX filename

This is the default mailbox to read messages in from. Define this with a value of NONE to read from standard input as the default.

HM_ARCHIVES URL

This will create a link in the archived index pages labelled Other mail archives to the specified URL. Define as NONE to omit such a link.

HM_ABOUT URL

This will create a link in the archived index pages labelled About this archive to the specified URL. Define as NONE to omit such a link.

HM_USETABLE boolean_number

Defining this causes Hypermail to generate an index menu in HTML table format at the top and bottom of each page.

HM_REVERSE boolean_number

Defining this variable as 1 will reverse-sort the article entries in the date and thread index files by the date they were received. That is, the most recent messages will appear at the top of the index rather than the other way around.

HM_SHOWHEADERS boolean_number

Define this as 1 to show the article header lines in the archived HTML files. These lines typically include the To:, From: and Subject: information found in most email messages.

HM_SHOWHTML 0, 1, or 2

Define as 1 to show the articles in a proportionally-spaced font rather than a fixed-width (monospace) font. Setting this option to 1 also tells Hypermail to attempt to italicize quoted passages in articles. Define as 2 for more complex conversion to html similar to that in txt2html.pl. Showhtml = 2 will normally produce nicer looking results than showhtml = 1, and showhtml = 0 will look pretty dull, but 1 and 2 run risks of altering the appearance in undesired ways.

HM_SHOWBR boolean_number

Define as 1 to place <br> tags at the end of article lines. Otherwise, all non-quoted article lines will word wrap. This only takes effect if HM_SHOWHTML is defined.

HM_IQUOTES boolean_number

Define as 1 to italicize quoted lines.

HM_SHOWHR boolean_number

Define as 1 to place horizontal rules before and after articles.

HM_SHOW_MSG_LINKS boolean_number

Define as 1 to put the individual message links at the top of the individual message pages. Define as 0 to produce pages without the Next, Previous, Reply, In reply to, etc. links.

HM_EURODATE boolean_number

Define as 1 to display article received dates with days before months instead of months before days.

HM_SHOWREPLIES boolean_number

Define as 1 to show all replies to a message as links in article files.

HM_MAILTO address

The address of the contact point that is put in the HTML header line <LINK REV=made HREF=mailto:MAILTO> The <LINK...> header can be disabled by default by setting HM_MAILTO to "NONE".

HM_MAILCOMMAND command

This specifies the mail command to use when converting email addresses to links. The variables $TO, $SUBJECT, and $ID can be used in constructing the command string. $TO represents the address to send mail to, $SUBJECT represents the subject that is being replied to, and $ID represents the message ID of the article that is being replied to. If defined as NONE , email addresses will not be converted to links in articles. A possible command one could use is mailto:$TO , but this could easily be changed to specify a CGI program such as /cgi-bin/mail?to=$TO . A CGI mail program is included with the source which can be used for this purpose.

HM_DOMAINADDR domainname

Set this to the domainname you want added to a mail address appearing in the RFC2822 field which lack a hostname. When the list resides on the same host as the user sending the message, it is often not required of the MTA to domain-ize these addresses for delivery. In such cases, Hypermail will add the DOMAINADDR to the email address. If defined as NONE , this feature is turned off.

HM_LABEL label name

Define this as the default label to put in archives.

HM_DIR directory

This is the default directory that Hypermail will look for when creating and updating archives. If defined as NONE the directory will have the same name as the input mailbox.

HM_DIRMODE octal_number

This is an octal number that new directories are set to when they are created. If the archives will be made publically available, it's a good idea to define this as 0755. If files will be updated incrementally with sendmail, this will have to be 0777.

HM_FILEMODE octal_number

This is an octal number that new files are set to when they are created. If the archives will be made publically available, it's a good idea to define this as 0644.

HM_OVERWRITE boolean_number

Define as 1 to make Hypermail overwrite existing archives by default.

HM_INCREMENT boolean_number

Define as 1 to read one article only and append it to existing archives by default.

HM_PROGRESS boolean_number

Define as 1 or as 2 to always show a progress report as Hypermail works. Defined as 2 shows more information about the attachment files created. This is written to stdout.

HM_THRDLEVELS number

This specifies the number of thread levels to outline in the thread index. For instance, if HM_THRDLEVELS is 2, replies to messages will be indented once in the index, but replies to replies, etc., will only be indented once as well.

HM_DEFAULTINDEX type

This specifies the default index that users can view when entering the archive. Valid types are date, thread, author, and subject.

HM_HMAIL submission-address

This is the email address used to send a new message to a hypermail archive. "NONE" means don't use it. Since this is different for each hypermail archive, you should probably leave it set to "NONE" here, and let it be specified at runtime by command-line parameters in the list specific configfile.

HM_IHTMLHEADERFILE path

Define path as the path to a file containing valid HTML formatting statements that you wish to included at the top of every index page. Hypermail will print this file as the header of the index so make sure it contains <HTML>, <HEAD>, <BODY> and other statements that suit your local customized needs.

HM_IHTMLFOOTERFILE path

Define path as the path to a file containing valid HTML formatting statements that you wish to included at the bottom of every index page. Hypermail will print this file as the trailer of the index so make sure it contains at a minimum a </BODY> and </HTML> statement.

HM_MHTMLHEADERFILE path

Define path as the path to a file containing valid HTML formatting statements that you wish to included at the top of every message page. Hypermail will print this file as the header of the message so make sure it contains <HTML>, <HEAD>, <BODY> and other statements that suit your local customized needs.

HM_MHTMLFOOTERFILE path

Define path as the path to a file containing valid HTML formatting statements that you wish to included at the bottom of every message page. Hypermail will print this file as the trailer of the message so make sure it contains at a minimum a </BODY> and </HTML> statement.

HM_SHOW_HEADERS list of headers to display

Define the list of headers to be displayed if the variable HM_SHOWHEADERS is set to 1 (ON). This is a comma or space separated all on a single line such as

show_headers = From,Subject,Date,Message-ID

or they can be listed individually or any combination of.

  show_headers = From 
  show_headers = Subject 
  show_headers = Date 
  show_headers = Message-ID 

As a special case you can use the identifier ``*'' as header to tell hypermail to display all header lines.

HM_INLINE_TYPES image data types to inline

This is the list of MIME types that you want inlined as opposed to simply linked into the message. They can be listed individually on multiple lines or comma or space separated on a single line.

  inline_types = image/gif image/jpeg 
 or 
  inline_types = image/gif inline_types = image/jpeg 
HM_IGNORE_TYPES indicate attachment types to ignore
This is the list of MIME attachment types that you do not want to do 
anything with.  They are quietly ignored.  They can be listed individually 
on multiple lines or comma or space separated on a single line. 

  ignore_types = text/x-vcard application/x-msdownload 
 or 
  ignore_types = text/x-vcard 
  ignore_types = application/x-msdownload 
HM_LINKQUOTES boolean_number
Set this to On to create fine-grained links from quoted
text to the text where the quote originated. It also improves
the threads index file by more accurately matching messages
with replies. Note that this may be rather cpu intensive (see
the searchbackmsgnum option to alter the performance).
HM_SEARCHBACKMSGNUM postive integer
If the linkquotes option is on and an incremental update is being
done (-u option), this controls the tradeoff between speed and
the reliability of finding the right source for quoted text.
Try to set it to the largest number of messages between a
message and the final direct reply to that message.
HM_LINK_TO_REPLIES text used to indicate links to replies
If the linkquotes option is on, specifying a string here
causes it to generate links from original quoted text the
location(s) in replies which quote them. The string
is used to display the link.
HM_QUOTE_HIDE_THRESHOLD percent (integer)
If the linkquotes option is on, setting this to an
integer less than 100 will cause it to replace quoted
text with one-line links if the percent of lines in the
message body (exluding the signature) consisting of
quoted text exceeds the number indicated by this option.
HM_QUOTE_LINK_STRING text to appear in place of quoted text
If the quote_hide_threshold option is being used, the
quote_link_string will be used if available to display the
link that replaces the quoted text. If no string is specified
here, the first line of each section of quoted text will used.
HM_MONTHLY_INDEX = boolean_number
Set this to On to create additional index files broken up
by month. A summary.html file will provide links to all the
monthly indices.
HM_YEARLY_INDEX = boolean_number
Set this to On to create additional index files broken up
by year. A summary.html file will provide links to all the
yearly indices.
HM_THREAD_FILE_DEPTH = 0 or 1
If nonzero, break the threads index file into multiple files,
with the initial message of each thread in the main index file
along with links to files containing the replies. Setting this
to 1 creates one file for each thread that has replies, and is
recommended for archives with over a few hundred messages.
Setting this greater than 1 will produce multiple levels of files
for each thread whose replies are nested by more than 1 level,
but that is rarely useful. This option is currently disabled
if the indextable option is turned on, and probably needs to
be less than thrdlevels.