Feature Requests item #1533331, was opened at 2006-08-02 13:27 Message generated for change (Comment added) made by bwarsaw You can respond by visiting: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=350103&aid=1533331&group_id=103 Please note that this message will contain a full copy of the comment thread, including the initial issue submission, for this request, not just the latest update. Category: None Group: None Status: Open Resolution: None Priority: 5 Submitted By: Eric S. Raymond (esr) Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody) Summary: support moving lists to another mailman instance Initial Comment: I'm having to move a project off a hosting site that uses Mailman, and have discovered to my shock that there is no easy way to capture a snapshot of the list state and re-instantiate it on another Mailman instance. While this remains the case, Mailman is a prison for my data. The only way I could get even the subscriber list was by tedious screen-scraping of the membership management CGI, made more tedious because the interface only wants to show me the subscriber list in small chunks. Breaking up the list archives by month is all very well but I want to be able to get all of the traffic -- and I want to be able to upload it into another Mailman instance. I gave up on metadata such as hide and digest bits entirely; there's no equivalent of mass subscribe that would let me set those, I'd have to patch them in by hand per each subscriber address in the new list instance. The *correct* design would be to allow me to download one file that's an XML document containing subscriber list, metadata such as digest and hide bits, and the traffic. That blob should be uploadable to another Mailman instance in a way that simply re-instantiates the list. ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: Barry A. Warsaw (bwarsaw) Date: 2006-08-06 20:02

Message: Logged In: YES user_id=12800 Here's the procedure for moving a list with shell access: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq03.004.htp As for security, should the XML output include user passwords? If you're exporting via the web, probably not. If you're exporting via the shell, probably so. Also, not every installation will want to allow list owners to move their lists (e.g. python.org probably wouldn't). If I had to guess I'd say that if list owners can delete their lists, they can probably move them. See what I mean about there being issues? It's a good idea though so I've added it as a possible item for MM2.2: http://wiki.list.org/x/IQ It probably needs more discussion on mailman-developers though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Eric S. Raymond (esr) Date: 2006-08-02 13:58 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=3060 First, that "if you have shell access" is a big if. I do not in fact have shell access to the list server, and it's a bad thing if the Mailman design assumes I do. Second, AFAIK the "easy" procedure is not documented. Third, I don't see any (additional) security implications. All the pieces of state are already available through the administration interface, they're just a royal pain in the ass to extract by hand. Finally, you should support moveable list snapshots because it gives Mailman users the guarantee that they can have *all* their data back in a transparent form whenever they need it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Barry A. Warsaw (bwarsaw) Date: 2006-08-02 13:39 Message: Logged In: YES user_id=12800 FWIW, It's very easy to move a list if you have shell access to the server Mailman is running on. There are many security implications to allowing access to all that data via the web. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can respond by visiting: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=350103&aid=1533331&group_id=103