Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to How to set permissions for reading files

Your presumption is correct: unless nsadmin is in your mail group, as long as the file is not world-readable then AOLserver won't be able to open the file. You have three options: either make the file world readable (chmod o+r teamlist), add the nsadmin user to the mail group, or create or reassign the group ownership of the file to a different group that nsadmin is a member of.

I'd go with the first unless there is a compelling reason not to.