Mailman 3 June 1999 - Mailman-Developers

listinfo.html
by Per Starback June 10, 1999

June 10, 1999

There are some html errors in the default listinfo.html, including some none-nesting tags. In this mail is a version that fixes most of them. As can be seen I have edited revision 1.19 (which is in 1.0rc1). (While fixing the errors I changed the indentation to be more consistent, so if you want to check exactly what is changed you might want to use diff -b or -w.) If you add <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> at the start of this there are still two errors left than a validator finds. That's the HEIGHT attribute to TABLE which is a netscapism, and the COLS attribute which is an explorerism. (Maybe they should be eliminated too.) -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-  <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE><MM-List-Name> Info Page</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff"> <TABLE COLS="1" BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="4" CELLPADDING="5"> <TR> <TD COLSPAN="2" WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#99CCFF" ALIGN="CENTER"> <MM-List-Name> -- <MM-List-Description> </TD> </TR> <tr> <td colspan="2"> </td> </tr> <tr> <TD COLSPAN="2" WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFF0D0"> About <MM-List-Name> </TD> </TR> <tr> <td colspan="2"><MM-List-Info> To see the collection of prior postings to the list, visit the <MM-Archive><MM-List-Name> Archives</MM-Archive>. <MM-Restricted-List-Message> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD COLSPAN="2" WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFF0D0"> Using <MM-List-Name> </TD> </TR> <tr> <td colspan="2"> To post a message to all the list members, send email to <A HREF="mailto:<MM-Posting-Addr>"><MM-Posting-Addr></A>. You can subscribe to the list, or change your existing subscription, in the sections below. </td> </tr> <TR> <TD COLSPAN="2" WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFF0D0"> Subscribing to <MM-List-Name> </TD> </TR> <tr> <td colspan="2"> Subscribe to <MM-List-Name> by filling out the following form. <MM-Subscribe-Form-Start> <MM-List-Subscription-Msg> <blockquote> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="2" CELLPADDING="2" WIDTH="70%" HEIGHT="112"> <TR> <TD BGCOLOR="#dddddd" WIDTH="55%">Your email address:</TD> <TD WIDTH="33%"><MM-Subscribe-Box> </TD> <TD WIDTH="12%"> </TD></TR> <TR> <TD COLSPAN="3">You must enter a privacy password. This provides only mild security, but should prevent others from messing with your subscription. Do not use valuable passwords! <MM-Reminder> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD BGCOLOR="#dddddd">Pick a password:</TD> <TD><MM-New-Password-Box></TD> <TD> </TD></TR> <TR> <TD BGCOLOR="#dddddd">Reenter password to confirm:</TD> <TD><MM-Confirm-Password></TD> <TD>  </TD></TR> <tr> <td>Would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest? </td> <td><MM-Undigest-Radio-Button> No <MM-Digest-Radio-Button> Yes </TD> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3"> <center><MM-Subscribe-Button></center> </TABLE> </blockquote> <MM-Form-End> </td> </tr> <TR> <TD COLSPAN="2" WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFF0D0"> <a name="subscribers"> <MM-List-Name> Subscribers</a> </TD> </TR> <tr> <TD COLSPAN="2" WIDTH="100%"> <MM-Roster-Form-Start> <MM-Roster-Option> <MM-Form-End> <MM-Subscribe-Form-Start> <MM-Editing-Options> <MM-Form-End> </td> </tr> </table> <MM-Mailman-Footer> </BODY> </HTML>

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performance again...
by Ricardo Kustner June 8, 1999

June 8, 1999

Hi, well, it happened again last night that the system load jumped to abnormal levels on our server when some messages where being approved in admindb so I had to try to telnet to it again and issue a shutdown to the machine... It's getting really unworkable like this... :( recently, one of the people who use the moderating page told me that she often moderates by selecting several messages to approve on 1 page and then press the submit button (to be honest i didnt even know that was possible myself) -- i guess that's what can cause things going wrong: too many messages are being send at the same time and mailman goes bezerk... does anybody have idea how i can fix this? or is this a bug in mailman? i really need to fix it soon... there are other things running on that server too and it needs to be up 24h a day... if i happen to be online i usually fix it in 30-60 mins (telnetting to a server with 60+ systemload can take a while) but if i'm not around it can be down all night :( Thanks, Ricardo. --

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Archiving Automatically
by Feisal Umar June 5, 1999

June 5, 1999

Earlier I had a problem where whenever I tried to access the "Downloadable version" version of my list's archive. (The xxx.txt.gz has permission 600) I managed to fix it via manually running $prefix/bin/arch <listname> archives/private/<list-name>.mbox/<list-name>.mbox Shouldn't the bin/arch function be run automatically for each of my list? My list works fine in all other aspect (fingers crossed) except for 'downloadable archive'. Did I miss a step elsewhere? Thanks in advance -- Feisal Umar, Project Manager Huge, Friendly and Entertaining http://altavista.skali.com Skali Multimedia Applications Centre http://www.altek.com.my/smac

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Re: [Mailman-Developers] Monthly reminder sent by mailman-owner considered harmful
by Harald Meland June 4, 1999

June 4, 1999

[Bart Schaefer] > On 4 Jun 1999, Harald Meland wrote: > > > [Bart Schaefer] > > > > > Consider the possibility that I, unaware that this is going to take > > > place, subscribe an address that represents a local exploder. At > > > some later time everyone on that local list is going to be given my > > > password > > > > If you're adding other people's addresses, then how would they be able > > to unsubscribe later > > Because my "local exploder" is a news gateway and they simply use their > newsreader to subscribe/unsubscribe the newsgroup. Or because my exploder > is another mailing list manager so they can subscribe/unsubscribe from the > local list. Neither of these is an uncommon situation. I have no problem seeing the usefulness of adding non-personal addresses to mailing lists. I was merely stating that you shouldn't be using a very "private" password when doing so (i.e. don't use passwords that are used for other subscriptions as well). [ Even if the automatic reminders are turned off, people can still go to the list's member page (if it is open), click on some member address, and click on the "Send me my password now" button to have Mailman distribute the password to the member (which could be an exploder). ] In cases like these, there _will be_ loopholes in Mailman's "security mechanisms", unless you introduce some new concepts -- e.g. a "member owner address" that receives all administrative requests regarding it's associated member. The umbrella list feature of Mailman solves these things for lists where _all_ the member are exploders, but not for lists with both user and list members. I have been thinking about implementing a more general solution after 1.0 is out, but the list of post-1.0 things to do is getting pretty long... :) -- Harald

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[NEWBIE] ... Help! File permission error
by Feisal Umar June 4, 1999

June 4, 1999

Harald, if u don't mind, please go to http://listserv.mysmac.com/pipermail/demo-users/ On the "Downloadable Version" column: archive 19990604 is the problem I'm having now (and still do), archive 19990602 is what I will get if I run ~prefix/bin/arch <list name> whatever whatever I don't see anyone else having this problem ... so far. >From your previous analysis, archive 19990602 "downloadable version" is what I should get everytime a post is sent to the list .... why isn't it happening here? Thank you for your efforts so far :) _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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Change to speed up mass subscription committed -- testers welcome
by Harald Meland June 4, 1999

June 4, 1999

I have just committed a change to speed up the web interface "mass subscription" greatly (it saves the list configuration only once, as opposed to once per member added before). I have (of course) tested this change on my system, but as I have other non-committed changes here as well, and as the change is pretty low level, I'd really appreciate it if some people would try it out and let me know whether things work/don't work for them. Cheers, -- Harald

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Re: [Mailman-Developers] [NEWBIE] ... Help! File permission error
by Harald Meland June 4, 1999

June 4, 1999

[Feisal Umar] > Harald, > > Unfortunately .. it didn't work :( > > I am using Redhat 6.0, Mailman v1.0rc1, users' umask is 022, using qmail > 1.03 and I didn't install mailman as root > > I tried manually changing the file permissions to chmod 644, but Mailman > reverts it back to chmod 600 the next time I posted something to the list. Bummer... > PS: MY installation can be viewed at http://listserv.mysmac.com/ I tried this, but got redirected to your Mailman "listinfo" page -- which doesn't give me much relevant info. [Feisal Umar] > Earlier I had a problem where whenever I tried to access the "Downloadable > version" version of my list's archive. (The xxx.txt.gz has permission 600) > > I managed to fix it via manually running $prefix/bin/arch <listname> > archives/private/<list-name>.mbox/<list-name>.mbox You mean, after running bin/arch, the archive's permissions _stay_ correct? _Very_ strange -- the guts of bin/arch are, as far as I can see, identical to the guts of Mailman.Archiver.ArchiveMail(). The latter is the function that Mailman.MailList.Post() calls to update archives. > Shouldn't the bin/arch function be run automatically for each of my > list? No, not as such -- but the bin/arch and the builtin archiving invokes Mailman's archiving engine in the same way. > My list works fine in all other aspect (fingers crossed) except for > 'downloadable archive'. I'm confused -- are you saying that the permission problem is gone or not? -- Harald

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Re: [Mailman-Developers] Monthly reminder sent by mailman-owner considered harmful
by Harald Meland June 4, 1999

June 4, 1999

[Bart Schaefer] > I just received my first "mailing list memberships reminder" from a > mailman list. I asked the list admin about it, and he replied: > > > Each mailman installation optionally sends a single message covering > > all the mailing lists controlled by that installation, once per > > month. The option is controlled by the list administrators, though; > > not by the individual users. I could turn it off, but then I'd have > > to turn it off for everyone. > > I strongly suggest that this become a per-subscriber configurable > item. I think it probably will -- but not until after v1.0 is out. > Consider the possibility that I, unaware that this is going to take > place, subscribe an address that represents a local exploder. At > some later time everyone on that local list is going to be given my > password, possibly without my personally being aware it has happened > (if I don't happen to be on the list myself). If you're adding other people's addresses, then how would they be able to unsubscribe later -- unless they have som way for getting at the password. I think the correct solution to this problem is for you _not_ to use "your" password unless it really is one of "your" addresses you're adding. -- Harald

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Fwd: Re: Fwd: [Mailman-Users] smtplib
by Tomaz Borstnar June 4, 1999

June 4, 1999

This mail might help making Mailman more standards compliant. We all want that, right? >X-From_: mea(a)nic.funet.fi Wed Jun 2 15:15:26 1999 >Subject: Re: Fwd: [Mailman-Users] smtplib >From: Matti Aarnio <mea(a)nic.funet.fi> >To: tomaz.borstnar(a)over.net (Tomaz Borstnar) >Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 16:14:20 +0300 (EET DST) > > > Yes ? > >If mailman really does that, then it is as bad as M$ WinCE, which does >same incorrect SMTP address productionn, but I don't recall having seen >that problem. (a bit of web-browsing -- to locate the Mailman homepages, >etc..) > >Ok, I pulled in the current Mailman 1.0rc1 source, and found >following at it (Mailman/pythonlib/smtplib.py): > > def mail(self,sender,options=[]): > """SMTP 'mail' command -- begins mail xfer session.""" > optionlist = '' > if options and self.does_esmtp: > optionlist = string.join(options, ' ') > self.putcmd("mail", "FROM:%s %s" % (quoteaddr(sender) ,optionlist)) > return self.getreply() > > def rcpt(self,recip,options=[]): > """SMTP 'rcpt' command -- indicates 1 recipient for this mail.""" > optionlist = '' > if options and self.does_esmtp: > optionlist = ' ' + string.join(options, ' ') > self.putcmd("rcpt","TO:%s%s" % (quoteaddr(recip),optionlist)) > return self.getreply() > > >Ok, the problem can be at how the quoteaddr() works, does it >*always* yield addresses *with* "<...>" around them, or can it >sometimes yield those without the wrappers ? > >I would suggest it to always yield the target address *without* >the "<..>" angle brackets, and then always to print those explicitely. >That way there won't be some mystic cases where failures happen. > > >Another problem I have seen reports about are due to putcmd() >function misbehaviour (belief that "all the world is Sendmail"): > > def putcmd(self, cmd, args=""): > """Send a command to the server.""" > str = '%s %s%s' % (cmd, args, CRLF) > self.send(str) > >That FORCES extra space in case the 'args' does not exist for some >command (e.g. "DATA"). It should not. > >The more I read the mailman documents, the more I am convinced that >its coders use 'sendmail' as standard for how the RFC-821 can be >ignored/abused. You really should have somebody running e.g. ZMailer >in 'strict' mode, which will quickly weed out any protocol non-compliance. > >OTOH: For ZMailer there are also better ways to submit a message, than > doing it thru SMTP port. Methods that are way faster, and easily > codable in Python (I have a sample in PERL, and in C, of course.) > > /Matti Aarnio <matti.aarnio(a)sonera.fi> > > > >X-From_: mailman-users-admin(a)python.org Tue Jun 1 19:08:56 1999 > > >Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 12:13:26 -0400 (EDT) > > >From: Dave Sill <ds-list-mailman(a)sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> > > >To: mailman-users(a)python.org > > >Subject: [Mailman-Users] smtplib > > >X-Mailer: VM 6.71 under 21.1 "20 Minutes to Nikko" XEmacs Lucid (patch 2) > > >Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab, Oak Ridge, Tenn., USA > > >X-Face: > > >"p~Q]mg{;e*}YR|)&Q/&Q\*~5UWfZX34;5M<gHyq0KvGt<$qi6=B7;$3~1p?Jc7-g?1vPVA > c%YX > > >$E6]%1jvk:,"f*jA|?~Cxb?WJ5gt}L?qsMAjROM~rHbK27yx=t,L/?IHb8@|cYg8"Y)~0Ip > U~J. > > >^w,VW)u?M3q-AS{f`@RZ]Wll > > >X-Disclaimer: My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my > employer > > >Sender: mailman-users-admin(a)python.org > > >X-Mailman-Version: 1.0rc1 > > >List-Id: Mailman mailing list management users <mailman-users.python.org> > > >X-BeenThere: mailman-users(a)python.org > > > > > >It looks like Mailman does: > > > > > > MAIL FROM:mailman-owner@sws1.ctd.ornl.gov > > > > > >instead of: > > > > > > MAIL FROM:<mailman-owner(a)sws1.ctd.ornl.gov> > > > > > >I wonder what other SMTP corners were cut. > > > > > >-Dave > > > > > >------------------------------------------------------ > > >Mailman-Users maillist - Mailman-Users(a)python.org > > >http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users > > > > ---- > > Tomaz Borstnar <tomaz.borstnar(a)over.net> > > "Love is the answer to the final question you ask" - Unknown > > ---- Tomaz Borstnar <tomaz.borstnar(a)over.net> "Love is the answer to the final question you ask" - Unknown

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Monthly reminder sent by mailman-owner considered harmful
by Bart Schaefer June 3, 1999

June 3, 1999

I just received my first "mailing list memberships reminder" from a mailman list. I asked the list admin about it, and he replied: > Each mailman installation optionally sends a single message covering > all the mailing lists controlled by that installation, once per > month. The option is controlled by the list administrators, though; > not by the individual users. I could turn it off, but then I'd have > to turn it off for everyone. I strongly suggest that this become a per-subscriber configurable item. Consider the possibility that I, unaware that this is going to take place, subscribe an address that represents a local exploder. At some later time everyone on that local list is going to be given my password, possibly without my personally being aware it has happened (if I don't happen to be on the list myself). That sort of information should never be mailed to someone who hasn't explicitly asked for it and verified in some way that he's eligible to receive it.

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Re: [Mailman-Developers] [NEWBIE] ... Help! File permission error
by Harald Meland June 3, 1999

June 3, 1999

[Feisal Umar] > Hi. {This problem was actually posted at mailman-users lists, but I didn't > get any responses .. so I think I'll try here :) } Sure -- I'm trying to catch up with mailman-users, but unfortunately I'm still pretty far behind... > Whenever I am trying to access my public archive, I get an error message .. > the normal "denied access error". A quick file permission check shows that > the *.txt.gz file has a chmod 600 permission (hence denied access). Small oversight in the archiving code, I believe. Please try this patch: If this fixes your problem, let me know, and I'll commit the change. -- Harald

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[NEWBIE] ... Help! File permission error
by Feisal Umar June 3, 1999

June 3, 1999

Hi. {This problem was actually posted at mailman-users lists, but I didn't get any responses .. so I think I'll try here :) } My MailMan v1.0rc1 is working excellently except for one small nagging problem. Whenever I am trying to access my public archive, I get an error message .. the normal "denied access error". A quick file permission check shows that the *.txt.gz file has a chmod 600 permission (hence denied access). However, previous week's archives are OK (automatically chmod 644), the anomaly only affects the current week's archive. Help .. please ... anyone? This is my 3rd installation (using combinations of GIDs) but to no avail. Please ... just when I thought I could make do without MajorDomo .. :( Kudos to the MailMan Developers anyway Thanks in advance -- Feisal Umar Huge, Friendly and Entertaining http://altavista.skali.com Skali Multimedia Applications Centre http://www.altek.com.my/smac

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Re: [Mailman-Developers] Fwd: Re: Fwd: [Mailman-Users] smtplib
by Harald Meland June 2, 1999

June 2, 1999

[Tomaz Borstnar] > This mail might help making Mailman more standards compliant. We all > want that, right? Yup, but the Right Way to fix Mailman's SMTP interaction is by fixing the distributed-with-python smtplib.py (which Mailman includes an up-to-date copy of (in Mailman/pythonlib), for the benefit of those using old(er) Python installations). -- Harald

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