Mailman 3 September 1999 - Mailman-Developers

runaway python processes
by Gergely Madarasz Sept. 10, 1999

Sept. 10, 1999

mail 11965 0.0 0.6 1692 804 ? S Sep 9 0:00 /usr/bin/python /var/lib/mailman/scripts/deliver mail 11972 10.9 0.8 1864 1052 ? R Sep 9 157:54 \_ /usr/bin/python /var/lib/mailman/scripts/contact_transport I have about 6-7 of these. strace reveals nothing, so it doesn't do any system calls, just eats the processor by itself. Version 1.0. -- Madarasz Gergely gorgo(a)caesar.elte.hu gorgo(a)linux.rulez.org It's practically impossible to look at a penguin and feel angry. Egy pingvinre gyakorlatilag lehetetlen haragosan nezni. HuLUG: http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/

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Anti-Spam Acronymns -- I give up...
by Tom Funk Sept. 9, 1999

Sept. 9, 1999

H'lo, Gang: A few weeks ago there was a short thread on this list that made some passing references to acronyms for some of the 'Net's anti-spam black list/black hole servers. At the time, I didn't know what the acronyms meant so I hopped over to AltaVista and started hunting them down. I eventually found references to all of the referenced servers. Now, I'd actually like to get back to one or more of those sites -- but can't find the messages from that thread. And, of course, I didn't bookmark any of them... :-( I can't find the messages locally, I can't find them in the archives and I can't remember any of the acronyms. The thread should have been during August, since I only joined the list as of Aug. 8, or there 'bouts. The anti-spam references were a side-thread to the primary content of the messages. I believe the exchange was between one of the core maintainers (Barry??) and (I think) someone in Germany (.de domain???). I also remember that the core maintainer answering the messages pointed out the one of the acronyms was "top secret" (a misquote) and lived on the shelf next to the can of whoop-ass. <lol> Does any of this ring a bell to anyone? I'm almost positive the thread was from this list since I get the Mailman-Users list digested and these messages were delivered individually. The bottom line is: what were the acronyms or URLs for the sites in question? thx! -=< tom >=-

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Bug#43258: mailman: pipermail barfs when invoked multiple times (fwd)
by Gergely Madarasz Sept. 7, 1999

Sept. 7, 1999

Hello, I got this report in the debian bugtracking system. -- Madarasz Gergely gorgo(a)caesar.elte.hu gorgo(a)linux.rulez.org It's practically impossible to look at a penguin and feel angry. Egy pingvinre gyakorlatilag lehetetlen haragosan nezni. HuLUG: http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 21:12:59 +0200 From: Simon Richter <geier(a)phobos.fachschaften.tu-muenchen.de> To: submit(a)bugs.debian.org Subject: Bug#43258: mailman: pipermail barfs when invoked multiple times Resent-Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 19:18:00 GMT Resent-From: Simon Richter <geier(a)phobos.fachschaften.tu-muenchen.de> Resent-To: debian-bugs-dist(a)lists.debian.org Resent-cc: Gergely Madarasz <gorgo(a)caesar.elte.hu> Package: mailman Version: 1.0rc2-5 Hi, I am using mailman/pipermail for all list processing on my systems, and among these lists there is one for CVS autopostings. If someone commits changes in multiple directories, CVS creates a message for each of them, thus causing multiple messages to be queued in very short time. However, pipermail seems to have trouble when archiving these messages, the output from the command invoked by the mailer is as follows: Traceback (innermost last): File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/Archiver.py", line 210, in ArchiveMail h.close() File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/HyperArch.py", line 906, in close self.update_dirty_archives()# Update all changed archives File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/HyperArch.py", line 871, in update_dirty_archives self.update_archive(i) File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/pipermail.py", line 316, in update_archive article=self.database.getArticle(self.archive, msgid) File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/HyperDatabase.py", line 264, in getArticle s=self.articleIndex[msgid] File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/HyperDatabase.py", line 131, in __getitem__ return self.dict[item] I suspect this is some sort of locking problem. Am I right? Simon -- System Information Debian Release: 2.1 Kernel Version: Linux phobos 2.2.10 #1 Sat Jun 19 17:39:45 CEST 1999 i486 unknown Versions of the packages mailman depends on: ii libc6 2.0.7.19981211 GNU C Library: shared libraries ii python-base 1.5.1-7 An interactive object-oriented scripting lan ii python-misc 1.5.1-7 Miscellaneous support modules for Python. ii python-net 1.5.1-7 TCP/IP and various Internet support modules sendmail Not installed or no info ii exim 2.05-1 Exim Mailer ^^^ (Provides virtual package mail-transport-agent) apache Not installed or no info ii apache-ssl 1.3.3+1.29-2 Versatile, high-performance HTTP server with ^^^ (Provides virtual package httpd)

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Archive creation with zero messages
by Wim Godden Sept. 5, 1999

Sept. 5, 1999

As stated in the mailman FAQ, at least one message should have been sent before an archive is created. However, if you just run : $prefix/bin/arch listname $prefix/archives/private/listname.mbox then the archive is created even with zero messages and it displays : Currently, there are no archives. Which is a perfect solution. Why not just add that line to the newlist-executable ? Kind greetings, Wim Godden

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https
by Peter Gervai Sept. 3, 1999

Sept. 3, 1999

Hello, I'm using admin interface on https:// url, and some buttons send me to (absolute) address without https. There are http and https users, and I do not want to force either party to use the other way. Is it possible, or would it be possible to sort out such "cross-directions", and keep the user in the selected protocol? (Since pw are cleartext I advise all of our list managers to use https.) regards, grin

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Problem with UserDict?
by Paul Hebble Sept. 3, 1999

Sept. 3, 1999

Hi, I caught up with Mailman CVS today, and now bin/newlist dies like this: Traceback (innermost last): File "bin/newlist", line 146, in ? raise SystemExit(main(sys.argv)) File "bin/newlist", line 126, in main sendnotice(newlist, list_name, owner_mail, list_pw) File "bin/newlist", line 131, in sendnotice text = Utils.maketext( File "/home/mailman/Mailman/Utils.py", line 654, in maketext text = template % SafeDict(dict) File "/home/mailman/Mailman/Utils.py", line 631, in __init__ UserDict.__init__(self, d) TypeError: too many arguments; expected 1, got 2 Any idea what might be wrong? -- Paul

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Re: [Mailman-Users] How Do I Volunteer for a To Do list item?
by Listwrangler Sept. 2, 1999

Sept. 2, 1999

Dear Barry, >We'd love it if you'd help out with the documentation (an admitted >weakness). Currently this effort is being carried out on the >mailman-developers(a)python.org list. For now I suggest you check those >archives and subscribe to that list. Thanks, I'll do that. Some day... I just had to port the organization's web site and I'm all balled up with that now. The new ISP was going to alias the old addresses and web sites, so for the user nothing would changed. Suffice it to say, they changed, and I can't access the web site anymore. I'm trying to get my access restored, but have accepted the new ISP's offer to port to a new address. Most of the links in the site are relative URLs, but some weren't, and of course all the pointers and explanations for how to use our online features have changed, so I have to rewrite that... Sigh. >Great! We need volunteers to help out. What MD features are you >particularly missing? What is broken in MM for you? I sent a separate email about Membership Management console, so I'll skip that here. Regarding moderator features, I have sat down and drawn up a preliminary list of what should be simple changes. I'll have to think harder about deeper functionality. But this is what I think would be helpful but easy to access. The list administrator should have access to all functions of all lists. Only the list administrator should have access to configuration and related issues. The moderator should have access to administrivia for their lists, but no access to configuration. This is on the theory that a moderator will be a user with limited technical skills. The goal should be to equip them with easy to understand tools that are useful for list and user management while preventing them from getting into configuration and other stuff they don't understand. I walk my moderators through the screens, telling them what they're allowed to touch and what they're not allowed to touch. They're good people, they don't have the urge to play with things they've been told not to play with. However, I have some staffers that might get list responsibilities that I definitely DO NOT want to access configuration stuff! So I thought, the simplest thing is to just go through the admin pages and decide which ones it's okay for the moderators to access. Moderators access: Membership Management Bounce Options Subscriber List Tend to Pending Administrative Requests The rest should be reserved for the administrator. Hoever, the General Info page should be split into two pages, one for admin only stuff, and one for moderator stuff. The moderator should be able to do the following: Introductory paragraph for the list List specific text prepended to new subscriber welcome message Test appended to an unsubscription notice Administrivia filter should administrator get notices of administrative requests immediately? should administrator get notice of un/subs? Send mail to poster when their posting is held for approval? The other items should be reserved for the administrator, as they presumably will have a better understanding of the implications of the choices. Also, if there are multiple lists on one site, there should be uniformity in naming and descriptive practices, so things like the list name and terse description should be done in accordance with whatever the organizations standards are, and the list admin should be responsible for making that happen. However, the list administrator really doesn't care what the intro message is -- that's content, which is the responsibility of the moderator. The moderator should also have a box for changing their password. Password features: There are some security features that you might want to consider adding to the password user must change password at next log on remember password history (to prevent the same password being recycled) minimum length (maybe this is there, I always use moderately long passwords so i haven't checked) a help file about good passwords -- eg, don't use words that can be found in a dictionary, don't use words that can easily be guessed, don't use your name, the listname, minimum length, etc Another feature I think I would like is when non-posters are not allowed to post, give an option for send the posts to the admin request pending page, or to redirect them to a different email addy. Real world example: We run a conference, the True Spirit Conference. The TrueSpirit list is for conference committee members only, and is restricted so non-members cannot post. We give out the list address as the 'more info' address to avoid confusion. If you want TrueSpirit info, you send it to truespirt(a)iximd.com . So, the general public inquiries, 'where is the conference, how much does it cost?' get held, and the person tasked with tending the email list can then just rejects them (and the rejection message tells them where to get more info), and also subscribes their address to the announcement list, so they get the press releases as they become available. But sometimes people want to volunteer to help, or want to make a presentation, or need to know about wheelchair access, etc, and their inquiries need to get redirected to a human being to respond to. So if the approval page and had another option:"redirect to: " and then you could fill in the address, that would be great. Ideally there would be some configuration options for the redirect, like 'default address' to redirect to, so you could just check 'redirect' and it would automatically get mailed without having to type in the address every time. Then you would have to have a redirect message, that would have some canned message like, "Thank you for your interest in _name of mailing list_. Your query had been redirected to the proper person to follow up on." The administrator/moderator would have the option of customing the text in the configuration page to change what the redirect message was, or the option of changing the response on an individual basis. (The way reject works now.) Oh, which reminds me, where do I rewrite the default rejection message? And if I can't, then I recommend that it be possible. There's about three common reasons we reject, and if we could put them in the default, then I could just click instead of typing the reason each time. And, for the moderator, an option to prepend a simple header message for each email would be useful. Yes, you have this, but it's blank. You've got a footer already filled in that has the list name, URL, etc. But I don't know the format, I want to add in a header that says, "This message posted _date_ by _username_ to _listname_:" (The help file should give the syntax for common headers so that non-technical moderators can choose to use them or not.) This is particularly helpful if the list headers have been munged to remove the sender's address. Yes, there are debates about munging, so I won't share my views on the subject; but in certain circumstances it's useful to have the reply-to set to the list name while the individual poster's name is at the top of the message. These are the things that I keep mumbling to myself about as I work the lists, I'll give some deeper thought to the subject and get back to you with additional suggestions. Gary Listwrangler listwrangler(a)iximd.com ******************** For help with subscribe/unsubscribe, troubleshooting, or more info about The American Boyz email lists, please visit: ________ (new web page being developed, please stand by), or request a copy of the Amboyz Elist Help File to be emailed to you. If you are familiar with Mailman, the following lists are implemented with Mailman and use standard Mailman features: Amboyz-Main, Amboyz-Announce, TrueSpirit, and ElderTG

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External Archiving Patch
by Paul Hebble Sept. 2, 1999

Sept. 2, 1999

Hi all, This patch should let the administrator specify alternative external archivers. All you have to do is set the PUBLIC_EXTERNAL_ARCHIVER and/or PRIVATE_EXTERNAL_ARCHIVER variables to the command line you wish to use. If you put "$LISTNAME" or "${LISTNAME}" in the command line, it is replaced with the name of the list. Mailman will run the command line and pipe each post to it. The main advantage to this is that all post filtering is done without having to subscribe a procmailrc to the list. This prevents list-admins from accidentally unsubscribing the archiver. If the variables given above are set to "" (the default), Mailman will fall back to the built-in Pipermail archiver, so this should not break any existing installations. My apologies for using regsub, but I have not been able to find enough documentation on the re module. Perhaps someone better acquainted with it could migrate this patch to it? -- Paul Hebble <hebble(a)ncsa.uiuc.edu> -- BEGIN PATCH (Also attached in gzip format) diff -Nru --exclude=CVS --exclude=Makefile --exclude=crontab.in --exclude=mm_cfg.py.dist --exclude=*.pyc --exclude=.*.tmp --exclude=config.* mailman/Mailman/Archiver/Archiver.py mailman-archiving/Mailman/Archiver/Archiver.py --- mailman/Mailman/Archiver/Archiver.py Thu Jul 1 13:59:51 1999 +++ mailman-archiving/Mailman/Archiver/Archiver.py Tue Aug 3 09:46:14 1999 @@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ import sys, os, string import errno from Mailman.Utils import reraise, mkdir +import regsub # # package/project modules @@ -174,6 +175,13 @@ # Resurrect original date setting. post.SetHeader('Date', olddate) + def ExternalArchive(self, ar, txt): + regsub.gsub("\$LISTNAME\>", self.real_name, ar) + regsub.gsub("\${LISTNAME}", self.real_name, ar) + extarch = os.popen(ar, "w") + extarch.write(txt) + extarch.close() + # # archiving in real time this is called from list.post(msg) # @@ -207,6 +215,16 @@ if line and line[:5] == 'From ': line = '>' + line txt = txt + "%s\n" % line + if not self.archive_private \ + and mm_cfg.PUBLIC_EXTERNAL_ARCHIVER is not "" and \ + mm_cfg.PUBLIC_EXTERNAL_ARCHIVER is not "pipermail": + ExternalArchive(mm_cfg.PUBLIC_EXTERNAL_ARCHIVER, txt) + os._exit(0) + if self.archive_private \ + and mm_cfg.PRIVATE_EXTERNAL_ARCHIVER is not "" and \ + mm_cfg.PRIVATE_EXTERNAL_ARCHIVER is not "pipermail": + ExternalArchive(mm_cfg.PRIVATE_EXTERNAL_ARCHIVER, txt) + os._exit(0) f = StringIO(txt) import HyperArch h = HyperArch.HyperArchive(self) diff -Nru --exclude=CVS --exclude=Makefile --exclude=crontab.in --exclude=mm_cfg.py.dist --exclude=*.pyc --exclude=.*.tmp --exclude=config.* mailman/Mailman/Defaults.py mailman-archiving/Mailman/Defaults.py --- mailman/Mailman/Defaults.py Wed Aug 4 10:16:26 1999 +++ mailman-archiving/Mailman/Defaults.py Tue Aug 3 09:14:44 1999 @@ -62,6 +62,8 @@ # DEFAULT_ARCHIVE_VOLUME_FREQUENCY = 1 +PUBLIC_EXTERNAL_ARCHIVER = "" +PRIVATE_EXTERNAL_ARCHIVER = "" HOME_PAGE = 'index.html' MAILMAN_OWNER = 'mailman-owner@%s' % DEFAULT_HOST_NAME diff -Nru --exclude=CVS --exclude=Makefile --exclude=crontab.in --exclude=mm_cfg.py.dist --exclude=*.pyc --exclude=.*.tmp --exclude=config.* mailman/Mailman/Defaults.py.in mailman-archiving/Mailman/Defaults.py.in --- mailman/Mailman/Defaults.py.in Mon Aug 2 11:42:20 1999 +++ mailman-archiving/Mailman/Defaults.py.in Tue Aug 3 09:15:02 1999 @@ -62,6 +62,8 @@ # DEFAULT_ARCHIVE_VOLUME_FREQUENCY = 1 +PUBLIC_EXTERNAL_ARCHIVER = "" +PRIVATE_EXTERNAL_ARCHIVER = "" HOME_PAGE = 'index.html' MAILMAN_OWNER = 'mailman-owner@%s' % DEFAULT_HOST_NAME

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[root@tolna.net: Cron <list@melanie> /usr/bin/python /var/lib/mailman/cron/mailpasswds]
by Peter Gervai Sept. 2, 1999

Sept. 2, 1999

This is my monthly remainder. I looket at it several times but no luck. Sidenote: is there a searchable archive of the lists? I would like to search for the answer instead of possibly asking here again... ----- Forwarded message from Cron Daemon <root(a)tolna.net> ----- Traceback (innermost last): File "/var/lib/mailman/cron/mailpasswds", line 158, in ? main() File "/var/lib/mailman/cron/mailpasswds", line 154, in main MailAllPasswords(a_public_list, hosts) File "/var/lib/mailman/cron/mailpasswds", line 87, in MailAllPasswords text = Utils.maketext( File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/Utils.py", line 610, in maketext return wrap(template % dict) KeyError: one_list ----- End forwarded message -----

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Documentation Guidelines
by Barry A. Warsaw Sept. 2, 1999

Sept. 2, 1999

Hi folks, I've gotten some guidelines from RMS about Mailman documentation. I'm wondering if it would be useful for me to create a small working group mailing list for those of you who would like to collaborate on documentation? We can continue to use the mailman-developers list if you prefer. Documentation should be in Texinfo format, although it is okay to write it in some other format, if what we release is the Texinfo. Please see the GNU Texinfo manual for style guides. RMS sent me the proper assignment forms for both the main manual contributors and for those who donate smaller changes. Let me know and I will send them to you. -Barry

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