On my LISTSERV list, what is the Service keyword, and how do I use it?

As the owner of a LISTSERV list, you can use the Service keyword to define a service area, which restricts access to your list to specific hosts or domains. By using the Service keyword in combination with other keywords, you can hide your list from people outside a specific area, refuse subscription requests, and restrict who can review your list of subscribers.

Note: To complete the steps in this document, you will need to edit the list header; see On my LISTSERV list, how can I modify the list header?

To hide your list and refuse subscription requests from users outside a specified service area, use the following keywords and settings:

The hosts and domains considered local by default are defined by the LISTSERV administrator in the site configuration file. However, you can override the default by defining the Local keyword in your list's header. For more information on the Local keyword, see On my LISTSERV list, what is the Local keyword, and how do I use it?

You can achieve the same effect as above by using the Service keyword, and defining it with the hosts or domains to which you want to limit access. For example, at Indiana University, you can hide your list from users outside IU Bloomington and IUPUI by using the following keywords and settings:

If there are several subdomains within your primary domain, you can use the wildcard when defining the Service keyword. For example, to define a service area that includes all subdomains of the indiana.edu domain, use the following:

To restrict the ability to review your subscriber list to a specific service area, use the Review keyword in combination with the Service keyword. For example, at IU, to ensure that only people at IUB can review your subscriber list, use the following:

For more options, see On my LISTSERV list, how do I restrict who can view the list of subscribers?

For more detailed information, refer to the LISTSERV Keyword Reference manual.

For more about LISTSERV, see L-Soft Documentation and Manuals.

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