Mailman 3 February 1999 - Mailman-Developers

Re: [Mailman-Developers] Moderation comment interface change
by J C Lawrence Feb. 9, 1999

Feb. 9, 1999

On Mon, 8 Feb 1999 14:17:08 -0500 Christopher G Petrilli<petrilli(a)amber.org> wrote: > On Mon, Feb 08, 1999 at 10:55:55AM -0800, J C Lawrence wrote: >> A brief perusal of the MHonArc list's archives and the regular >> problems members have with message separators with MHonArc seems >> to suggest otherwise. The lack of an absolute standard (eg BNF >> diagram in a recognised RFC) for mbox format really doesn't help. > Well, the other option is PMDF style (4 0x001 characters at the > beginning of the line). True, tho its been quite a while since I've run into that one. > THe big problem with using MH-style is that it can become a HUGE > HUGE HUGE disk hog... I have a little over a million and a half messages in MH folders right now, and yes, they chew disk space. Disk however is cheap. > what I have looked into is shoving the whole thing into MySQL :-) Not a bad idea, especially if batched with a set of export tools to spit mbox/MH/etc for legacy interfaces. > One table per list, which would let you do some really nice > queries against it... this would let you move to a more dynamic > page generation, rather than a static one, which would allow users > to customize their page generation. Problems are two fold: Need a MHonArc analogue that will run against MySQL. Need a decent search tool (I use WebGlimpse, but HT://Dig isn't too bad) that will run against the results. > Perhaps we need to start a list-archiver project seperate from > mailman? I'd say so. -- J C Lawrence Internet: claw(a)kanga.nu (Contractor) Internet: coder(a)kanga.nu ---------(*) Internet: claw(a)under.engr.sgi.com ...Honorary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...

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Re: [Mailman-Developers] Moderation comment interface change
by J C Lawrence Feb. 9, 1999

Feb. 9, 1999

On 08 Feb 1999 13:08:05 +0100 Harald Meland<Harald.Meland(a)usit.uio.no> wrote: > [J C Lawrence] >> 5) MH-style archive folders, split out by archive period, instead >> of mbox'es (message separation semantics with mbox are not >> guaranteed). > While MH-style archive folders could be a nice feature, I don't > think your comment on the message separation semantics of mbox > folders is entirely correct. A brief perusal of the MHonArc list's archives and the regular problems members have with message separators with MHonArc seems to suggest otherwise. The lack of an absolute standard (eg BNF diagram in a recognised RFC) for mbox format really doesn't help. <<Analysis of postfix noted, and largely agreed with>> -- J C Lawrence Internet: claw(a)kanga.nu (Contractor) Internet: coder(a)kanga.nu ---------(*) Internet: claw(a)under.engr.sgi.com ...Honorary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...

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Re: [Mailman-Developers] subscribers being ignored
by Harald Meland Feb. 8, 1999

Feb. 8, 1999

[Harald Meland] > [Jerry Adlersfluegel] > > > Is it possible that there is a limit to how many recipients my > > sendmail is seeing? > > If no one else fills me in on the sendmail config details, I'll try > checking my bat book on Monday (or when I get the chance) and report > any relevant findings. Bat book checked and found outdated, so I checked Dejanews, and from hints found there I got this: From the sendmail-8.9.0 cf/README file: : +--------------------------------+ : | TWEAKING CONFIGURATION OPTIONS | : +--------------------------------+ : [...] : M4 Variable Name Configuration Description & [Default] : ================ ============= ======================= : confMAX_RCPTS_PER_MESSAGE MaxRecipientsPerMessage : [infinite] If set, allow no more than : the specified number of recipients in : an SMTP envelope. Further recipients : receive a 452 error code (i.e., they : are deferred for the next delivery : attempt). If you're running some sendmail version earlier than 8.9.0, I'd guess you could emulate this new option with some fancy stuff in e.g. the check_rcpt ruleset (but I'm not a sendmail guru, so don't take my word for it). Could you "grep MaxRecipientsPerMessage sendmail.cf" and let us know if my guess is anywhere near the solution to the problem, so that Mailman can include hints on checking this sendmail setting for other users with similar problems? -- Harald

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Re: [Mailman-Developers] Moderation comment interface change
by Harald Meland Feb. 8, 1999

Feb. 8, 1999

[J C Lawrence] > 5) MH-style archive folders, split out by archive period, instead of > mbox'es (message separation semantics with mbox are not guaranteed). While MH-style archive folders could be a nice feature, I don't think your comment on the message separation semantics of mbox folders is entirely correct. Sendmail (and compatible MTAs) actually _quote_ any lines beginning with "From " in the message body when delivering locally to avoid breaking the message separators. [ I've heard rumours that Postfix doesn't put any "From " quasi-header in pipe-delivered messages at all (while it does add "Delivered-To:" headers containing the envelope recipient (and use these headers to kill forwarding loops -- this may actually be a clue to the problems people have getting Mailman and Postfix working together)). If this indeed is the case, then there would (from Postfix' point of view) be no need to quote any "From " lines in the body of the message, either -- and this could break the message separation semantics of Mailman's mbox-style folders. Whether the proper fix is for Mailman to quote any "From " lines on it's own, or switch to using some other folder format, is at this time unclear to me. ] -- Harald

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Moderation comment interface change
by J C Lawrence Feb. 8, 1999

Feb. 8, 1999

Suggested changes for MailMan 1.0b8: 1) Add email command to add a given subscriber address to the "Addresses of members accepted for posting to this list without implicit approval requirement..." and extend this feature to (optionally) send a message to the given subscriber denoting that they are now on the "posters" list. 2) Currently when when you reject a post to a moderated list you can also enter a one line explanation to be sent back to the original poster. Often I reject a post for multiple reasons, such as lines longer than 80 columns, missing attributions on quoted text, signature too long, etc. Any reason not to change the input fields from a single line to a multi-line text area? 3) Ability to explicitly turn off RFC 1153 digests (I want MIME only). 4) Ability to define a separate Reply-To address to be applied to digests only (in my case I point it to a null address -- I don't want users replying to digests). 5) MH-style archive folders, split out by archive period, instead of mbox'es (message separation semantics with mbox are not guaranteed). Comments? -- J C Lawrence Internet: claw(a)kanga.nu ----------(*) Internet: coder(a)kanga.nu ...Honorary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...

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Re: [Mailman-Developers] subscribers being ignored
by Harald Meland Feb. 7, 1999

Feb. 7, 1999

[Jerry Adlersfluegel] > I added a couple subscribers over a week ago and they are not getting any > of the messages. They did receive their subscription reminders. > > I have unsubscribed them and then re-added them (it is a closed list) and > it didn't help. Their profiles are the same as anyone else, but they just > don't get any of the mail. > > The only thing I can think of is that the ones that are shut out are all > on AOL. There are 22 regular subscribers on AOL, and I noticed how the > mail gets batched together. Is it possible that there is a limit to how > many recipients my sendmail is seeing? There is no such restriction that I know of in Mailman, but I believe you can configure Sendmail to put a ceiling on how many RCPT To:s you can have for one single message. I don't have my bat book here (nor am I very familiar with Sendmail configuration in general), so I don't know what specific config settings you should have a look at. As Mailman tries to batch addresses together by domain when it does deliveries, having a too restrictive Sendmail configuration could indeed be your problem. [ IIRC, the most recent draft of the upcoming RFC821-replacement says to allow _at least_ 100 RCPT To:s for any message -- so your apparent ceiling of 20 would be a bit low. ] If no one else fills me in on the sendmail config details, I'll try checking my bat book on Monday (or when I get the chance) and report any relevant findings. > The only reason I can even think that is the problem is that the most > recently added users are the ones that aren't getting the traffic. Hmmm... I don't think that Mailman keeps track of _when_ the various members of a list was added, or even the order in which this happens -- they are all kept in the same dict (or "hash", if you prefer), so there needn't be any relation between the time of subscribing and what addresses gets "denied" by your sendmail config. -- Harald

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Feature Request: unsubscribe from list mail
by Ken Manheimer Feb. 7, 1999

Feb. 7, 1999

Bobo connor wrote: > I subscribe to a lot of lists and > ***all too often*** > see messages such as: > > unsubscribe > or > please unsubscribe me from this list. > or > how do I unsubscribe > > NEAT FEATURE REQUEST > > Before messages of this type are sent > to the list of hundreds of others, How about > a routine that scans ONLY the > first line of the body looking for > the word unsubscribe (Upper & Lower case) > > This message would NOT be posted but quoted > back to the sender with the standard > "Reply to this message to confirm > your canceled subscription" > > I struggle my self when unsubscribing because > I have misplaced, deleted or archived the > first list "save this message" especially on long running > lists. Ironically, your message was held for administrator approval due to the "unsubscribe" in the subject and first few lines of the message - mailman has an administivia detector (that could perhaps use more tuning). I did approve it, and would have liked if the approval message offered me the option to note just this in the approval, but no such luck. (I would have commented about this, but my company's connection to the internet is currently suffering non-cooperation from the phone company, so i'm hardly connected.) The approach you suggest of soliciting confirmation for suspect administrivia messages sounds like one good way to improve the situation - are you thinking about implementing it? If anyone is, it'd be good to discuss it on the list first. My thought is that it would be good to generalize the confirmation mechanism mailman already has so it can be used by the administrator at their discretion, eg from the admindb approval page... Briefly, Ken klm(a)digicool.com

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subscribers being ignored
by Jerry Adlersfluegel Feb. 6, 1999

Feb. 6, 1999

I sent this to -users and haven't heard back from anyone, so I'll try here. My setup: Linux 2.0.32 sendmail 8.9.2 (was 8.8.7 until this morning) mailman 1.0b8 I have a single list with 77 subscribers. I am hosting the list through a modem, and it is great. The improvements since b5 are such that delivery time has improved from over 4 minutes for a typical message to about 1:30. Everyone is happy with the list. Except for a couple people that don't receive any of the traffic. I added a couple subscribers over a week ago and they are not getting any of the messages. They did receive their subscription reminders. I have unsubscribed them and then re-added them (it is a closed list) and it didn't help. Their profiles are the same as anyone else, but they just don't get any of the mail. The only thing I can think of is that the ones that are shut out are all on AOL. There are 22 regular subscribers on AOL, and I noticed how the mail gets batched together. Is it possible that there is a limit to how many recipients my sendmail is seeing? In my case a single message gets sent for all the AOL recipients, of which there are only 19 on the recipient list. Is there a way I can control how this works? The only reason I can even think that is the problem is that the most recently added users are the ones that aren't getting the traffic. Thanks for any ideas. -- Jerry Adlersfluegel

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member-sets composed of member-sets for other Mailman-lists
by Harald Meland Feb. 5, 1999

Feb. 5, 1999

Hi, I am more and more frequently getting reqests for mailing lists that reach the union of members of other mailing lists (all these mailing lists are Mailman controlled). The Mailman concept of umbrella lists doesn't quite cut it, as I find it a hack to solve a specific case -- i.e. it is not general enough. Besides, how can you (safely) set up an umbrella list to have any message inserted into some level of the hierarchy only generate _one_ request for moderator approval? Various heuristics based on looking at mail headers isn't reqally my idea of a "Good, Clean Solution" :) Thus, my request: Could Mailman accept some special syntax member address (being invalid in the SMTP sense) for including all members of another Mailman list (under the same Mailman installation) into this list? I.e., if the list "all-students" has this member list: some.supervisor(a)some-faculty.my.domain another.non.student(a)administration.my.domain [students-spring-1998] [students-fall-1998] , then the union of the regular addresses on the "all-students" list and the (recursively) expanded member list of the included lists ("students-spring-1998" and "students-fall-1998") is the real member list of the "all-students" list. Adding these "include other list" addresses should only be possible via the admin web interface (i.e. not possible via the regular "I want to subscribe" user web interface). The whole issue with where to send the password reminders and such would go away -- send out password reminders to members subscribed via lists that are configured to do so (and users wouldn't even have a separate password, let alone separate subscription options for lists they are indirectly subscribed to. I consider this coarse granularity a feature, YMMV). It would also be nice if there was some provision for regulating which administrators were allowed to include what other lists into their own lists -- e.g., a first approximation could be: If the intersection of the sets of administrators of the including and the included lists is the empty set, disallow inclusion. Such "privileges control" will, of course, be easier to implement as administrators get their own Mailman object (to be worked on after 1.0 is finally out the door). So, what do y'all think? -- Harald

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MailMan 1.0b7
by Sylvain Bolduc Feb. 5, 1999

Feb. 5, 1999

Hello, I'm a system administration of the Uniconseil Mail Server. Recently, i've tried to use/install MailMan 1.0b7 over Linux REDHAT 5.2. But Since yesterday, i'm getting alot of thoses errors. I Can't find a way to fix the problem. Do you think i need to upgrade to 1.0b8 ? ------- We're sorry, we hit a bug! If you would like to help us identify the problem, please email a copy of this page to the webmaster for this site with a description of what happened. Thanks! Traceback: Traceback (innermost last): File "/home/mailman/scripts/driver", line 102, in run_main main() File "/home/mailman/Mailman/Cgi/admindb.py", line 124, in main HandleRequests(doc) File "/home/mailman/Mailman/Cgi/admindb.py", line 211, in HandleRequests list.HandleRequest(request, v) File "/home/mailman/Mailman/ListAdmin.py", line 122, in HandleRequest self.HandlePostRequest(request_data[2:], value, comment) File "/home/mailman/Mailman/ListAdmin.py", line 131, in HandlePostRequest self.Post(msg, 1) File "/home/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 1158, in Post self.DeliverToList(msg, recipients, File "/home/mailman/Mailman/Deliverer.py", line 172, in DeliverToList status = cmdproc.close() IOError: (10, 'No child processes') Environment variables: Variable Value HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING gzip REMOTE_HOST sly.uniconseil.com MAIL /var/spool/mail/root CONTENT_TYPE application/x-www-form-urlencoded HTTP_COOKIE imperial-admin=-2064826577; solutionet-admin=-435305760; direction-admin=1283484994; infogroupe-admin=2103634640 WN_ROOT /www/htdocs HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE en HOSTNAME postel.uniconseil.com URL_SCHEME http GATEWAY_INTERFACE CGI/1.1 HTTP_ACCEPT image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, image/png, */* _ /www/htdocs/mailman/admindb ENV /root/.bashrc HTTP_HOST postel.uniconseil.com:80 HOSTTYPE i386 SCRIPT_FILENAME /www/htdocs/mailman/admindb PYTHONPATH /home/mailman PATH /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/X11R6/binvt100:/usr/X11R6/bin:/root/bin USERNAME root DOCUMENT_ROOT /www/htdocs HISTFILESIZE 1000 HTTP_POST_FILE /tmp/wn_tmp65534/WNpost-36bb0b6f-416d-0 WN_DIR_PATH /www/htdocs/mailman OSTYPE Linux SERVER_PORT 11801 HTTP_USER_AGENT Mozilla/4.5 [en] (Win98; U) vt100 /bin/bash SHLVL 2 REMOTE_ADDR 206.47.155.152 SERVER_NAME postel.uniconseil.com SHELL /bin/bash TERM vt100 HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET iso-8859-1,*,utf-8 CONTENT_LENGTH 37 HOME /root SERVER_PROTOCOL HTTP/1.0 PATH_INFO /direction LOGNAME root REQUEST_METHOD POST PATH_TRANSLATED /www/htdocs/direction SCRIPT_NAME /mailman/admindb SERVER_SOFTWARE WN/2.1.5 USER root HTTP_REFERER http://postel.uniconseil.com:80/mailman/admindb/direction HISTSIZE 1000 REMOTE_PORT 2093 ----- Best Regards! Sylvain Bolduc SolutioNET Une filiale du Groupe Uniconseil inc. 1801, McGill College, suite 1010 Montreal (Quebec) H3A 2N4 Tel: (514) 840-1158 poste 351 Fax: (514) 840-1166 sylvainb(a)uniconseil.com http://www.uniconseil.com

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