[Mailman-Users] Mountain Lion server trouble

[Allan Herman]

OK, here are steps taken for a (mostly) successful installation on Mountain Lion server, including migration from the apple-supplied mailman previously running under Lion.

Primarily, subject to the following comments, I followed the steps in the Snow Leopard instructions at this page: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users@python.org/msg56963.html

In step 1, I will note that for ML, one would get XCode from the app store, rather than install developer tools. Also, as I was installing on OS X server, postfix was installed and running.

Steps 2 and 3, no changes.

Added step 3A to migrate data. When I upgraded from Lion Server to ML server, the installer moved my old mailman data to /Library/Server/Migrated/private/var/mailman/.
I copied over my existing data and configuration as follows:
sudo cp -a /Library/Server/Migrated/private/var/mailman/archives/* /usr/local/mailman/archives/
sudo cp -a /Library/Server/Migrated/private/var/mailman/data/* /usr/local/mailman/data/
sudo cp -a /Library/Server/Migrated/private/var/mailman/lists/* /usr/local/mailman/lists/
sudo cp -a /Library/Server/Migrated/private/var/mailman/qfiles/* /usr/local/mailman/qfiles/

Step 4 is significantly different, as the apache config files are changed in ML server. Here, I created the file /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-mailman.conf containing the following:

        ScriptAlias     /mailman/       /usr/local/mailman/cgi-bin/
        Alias /pipermail/       /usr/local/mailman/archives/public/
        Alias /icons/  /usr/local/mailman/icons/
<Directory "/usr/local/mailman/cgi-bin">
        order allow,deny
        allow from all
</Directory>
<Directory "/usr/local/mailman/archives/public">
        order allow,deny
        allow from all
</Directory>
<Directory "/usr/local/mailman/archives/public">
Options FollowSymLinks
</Directory>

The above is substantially the same as the lines added to httpd.conf in the source instructions, except that it adds the alias for the icons. This alias is instead of copying the icons to /usr/share/httpd/icons, where apache won't find them in ML server.

Further, ML Server's apache does not use the httpd.conf file, but rather, /Library/Server/Web/Config/apache2/httpd_server_app.conf. In order to incorporate the configuration we put into the httpd-mailman.conf, above, httpd_server_app.conf is edited to add the following line:

#Mailman
Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-mailman.conf

I put the above right after "Include /Library/Server/Web/Config/apache2/other/*.conf"

4(e) re cron jobs was followed without change

In step 5, 
- the real main.cf file, under ML Server, is in /Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix
- assuming postfix is running, you will already have something like "alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases" already. Don't change what you have already. Just tack on ",hash:/usr/local/mailman/data/aliases" to it. Note the comma.

Step 6 followed

Step 7 unnecessary, because of the import

Step 8 followed.

With the exception of one small glitch, it seems to be working well.



On 03-23-2013, at 10:31 PM, Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net> wrote:

> Allan Herman wrote:
> 
>> I tried the instructions on http://www.livetime.com/mountain-lion-mailman-mailing-list/  to install mailman on 10.8 server, but have hit a snag. The build seemed to go perfectly, but the change to the httpd_server_app.conf file breaks apache.
> 
> 
> Have you seen our FAQ at <http://wiki.list.org/x/O4A9>? It doesn't have
> Mountain Lion specific information, but it covers installation of the
> source distribution of Gnu Mailman on Mac OS X which is what we
> recommend.
> 
> -- 
> Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
> San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan
>