Mailman 3 October 2004 - Mailman-Developers

RE: [Mailman-Developers] Min requirements for running Mailman?
by John.Airey＠rnib.org.uk 31 May '05

31 May '05

> -----Original Message----- > From: mailman-developers-bounces+john.airey=rnib.org.uk(a)python.org > [mailto:mailman-developers-bounces+john.airey=rnib.org.uk@pyth > on.org]On > Behalf Of Tollef Fog Heen > Sent: Monday, 06 September 2004 16:47 > To: mailman-developers(a)python.org > Subject: Re: [Mailman-Developers] Min requirements for > running Mailman? > > > * Nigel Metheringham > > | I'd tend to take this as:- > | * Mailman is a bitch to package > > Not really. It's fairly well-behaved in my experience. It's a > semi-large web application with some requirements, but nothing > unreasonable. > > | * RH have packaged it for a while > | * RH found a good few of the gotchas in packaging Mailman > | * RH have subsequently learnt from their mistakes and recently > | have produced good packages. > | * Other distros may do better, or may yet have to > learn from their > | mistakes :-) > > Mailman has been in Debian since June 1998 (1.0b4), so we've been > working on it for a while as well. I think our packages are of good > quality (far from perfect, but making perfect packages is _a lot_ of > work. ;) > Just to throw my tuppence worth in... I've used mailman since Red Hat 7.2. I found that the version that came with Red Hat 9.0 wouldn't work for me (ie I couldn't upgrade to it) so I stuck with the 7.2 version (2.0.13) till the end of Red Hat 9 support. We are now running the 2.1.5 version that comes with Fedora but running it on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I did however have to recreate all the lists by hand in an overnight shift (what fun that was...) a few days before leaving the country (hence the rush). At that time I didn't know I could export the configuration (Doh!). Red Hat have taken some packages out of RHEL eg arpwatch and mysql-server (although this is in the "extras" channel) even though these are in the source RPM. Mailman is currently not included but might be being put back in to RHEL 4.0. I would like to hope so, as I find 2.1.5 far superior to 2.0.13. -- John Airey, BSc (Jt Hons), CNA, RHCE Internet systems support officer, ITCSD, Royal National Institute of the Blind, Bakewell Road, Peterborough PE2 6XU, Tel.: +44 (0) 1733 375299 Fax: +44 (0) 1733 370848 John.Airey(a)rnib.org.uk To truly believe in Evolution requires complete faith that life has no meaning. Fortunately there are billions of people who aren't that stupid. -- DISCLAIMER: NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments is confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended recipient you should not use, disclose, distribute or copy any of the content of it or of any attachment; you are requested to notify the sender immediately of your receipt of the email and then to delete it and any attachments from your system. RNIB endeavours to ensure that emails and any attachments generated by its staff are free from viruses or other contaminants. However, it cannot accept any responsibility for any such which are transmitted. We therefore recommend you scan all attachments. Please note that the statements and views expressed in this email and any attachments are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RNIB. RNIB Registered Charity Number: 226227 Website: http://www.rnib.org.uk

6 11

referring fix_url.py
by Tokio Kikuchi 31 Oct '04

31 Oct '04

Hi developers, Since there are so many questions on 'how to fix exsiting list url', I want to add comments on fix_url.py in the ditribution documents. I am not a native english writer, so can someone fix my patch? TIA Tokio Index: INSTALL =================================================================== --- INSTALL (.../trunk) (revision 68) +++ INSTALL (.../branches/test_branch) (revision 68) @@ -435,7 +435,10 @@ add_virtualhost(DEFAULT_URL_HOST, DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST) + Note that you may also want to run bin/fix_url.py to change + existing lists' domain. + 5. Customize Mailman You should do these steps using the account you installed Mailman Index: Mailman/Defaults.py.in =================================================================== --- Mailman/Defaults.py.in (.../trunk) (revision 68) +++ Mailman/Defaults.py.in (.../branches/test_branch) (revision 68) @@ -137,6 +137,8 @@ # VIRTUAL_HOST['www.dom.ain'] # ==> 'dom.ain' # +# Note also that you have to run bin/fix_url.py if you want to change existing +# lists' domain. Read the help output from the script for detail. def add_virtualhost(urlhost, emailhost=None): DOT = '.' if emailhost is None:

11 58

locking and big lists
by Fil 30 Oct '04

30 Oct '04

Hello, I have had a big problem with Mailman yesterday and today: two or three hours after I sent out my "big list" message (150 000 subscribers), Mailman started to spend all its time using CPU, for ages. In fact, it was the bounce runner that had started to send out the "probe" messages, one by one, making VirginRunner lock the list repeatedly, and holding the lock for 15s each time. Meanwhile the web admin interface was unreachable (for that list), and other scripts waited and failed. I finally looked everywhere to find out what was happening, and cleaned up the qfiles/virgin/ queue of all the probes, and waited another two hours for the qflies/command/ queue to empty... not very good. As I have a very big server (4 CPUs, 6Gbytes of RAM), I suppose that only a MySQL-backed Mailman would answer this problem. How far is it from being usable? -- Fil

3 9

Bug in Membership list search?
by Peter Lombrozo 29 Oct '04

29 Oct '04

I think I found a bug in Mailman 2.1.5 Membership list search. When my search hits needs several pages to display the members, a letter list at the top links to the other alphabetical pages. However, when I hit the letter, it gives me all the members starting with that letter, instead of just the ones meeting the search criteria. I would need to put in the criteria for each letter. Is this a known bug, or is there a patch to change this behaviour? Thanks. Peter Lombrozo Plombrozo(a)veeco.com Software Engineer

1 0

status of search archive feature
by Glenn Burkhardt 29 Oct '04

29 Oct '04

I notice that there are patches available to integrate an archive search feature into Mailman, and at least one of the patches (#444884) has been maintained for years over the various versions of Mailman. Is there a plan for adding this incredibly useful feature to Mailman? Why hasn't patch 444884 been incorporated into the code as a supported feature? Thanks.

1 0

Customizing archive page
by Peter Lombrozo 28 Oct '04

28 Oct '04

I'm trying to modify the archtocnombox.html page to look more like our company web site. I was able to add in a form for htDig search which worked fine, but when I added a lot of tables and additional information in the page, MM or pipermail quit parsing the embedded variables (e.g.,%(archive_listing_start)s) and leaves them on the page. Is there some trick to get it to this, or does the script lose its mind trying to read in all the extra html and give up? Thanks. Peter Lombrozo plombrozo(a)veeco.com

1 0

Other MTA's
by Phill Thomas 27 Oct '04

27 Oct '04

Hi all, I hope this is the right list to be posting too, if not please let me know.... I currently run Communigate Pro on a Xserve running Mac OS 10.3.5, the list server built into Communigate is not brilliant and as such I decided to use Mailman instead. However I now find myself unsure how I can make Mailman use Communigate as the MTA? Or if this is even possible? Any advice or ideas on this would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Phillip Thomas

1 0

We may need to escape percent signs in admin forms
by Tom Neff 25 Oct '04

25 Oct '04

I notice that on one of my lists, a moderator had been using the "Add (address) to a sender filter" checkbox on a lot of pending moderator requests, so that a substantial list of automatic-discard addresses had been built *without* ever using the Sender Filters admin page. When I went to the Sender Filters page myself and tried to change something else, the Submit blew up with TypeError: not enough arguments for format string in htmlformat.py . I googled this and on a couple of Python forums I found the suggestion than an un-escaped percent sign had found its way into a template. My templates are untouched but Mailman builds a lot of documents on the fly, so I scanned the pre-submit Sender Filters page source for percents and lo, there were a couple in the list of auto-discard email addresses. On a whim I removed them and re-Submitted. Instant success. I am too swamped to hack the Mailman code right now but if someone wants to take a look, it may be that there is something called addError that is passing un-escaped text. We might want to come in after any template substitution and escape what's left. Or something.

2 2

escape characters for boilerplate messages not working
by Mark 23 Oct '04

23 Oct '04

I'm am having trouble putting together a Welcome Message. Using the escape characters for ", &, < and > do not seem to working. I'm getting very odd results whether I try to use the escape characters or not. Not using them results with the escape characters appearing in the delivered message (ie. "&" yields "&"), and using them results in this weird doubling thing (eg." &" yields "&amp;"). Any ideas?? Further, how can I change the text that Mailman automatically appends to the Welcome Message?? Can I set it so that it appends nothing?? For you developers, why doesn't it just use plain text, simply treating text as text?? It is for generating email, not a webpage. RTFM Notice: I have looked through all of the available documents at http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/ and went through the archives for the last several months. The list and archives at http://listowner.org/ do not seem to be working at this time. THANX!!

2 1

Issue with listinfo.html template
by Mark Sapiro 22 Oct '04

22 Oct '04

The following came up on the mailman-users list. ------------ begin quote of my post to mailman-users Matt Singerman wrote: > >I am running an installation of Mailman 2 on an OpenBSD server, running >several mailing lists. The one list in particular I am having problems >with is: > >http://list.mchoralhealth.org/mailman/listinfo/cohp > >The problem is that if you try and view the subscribers' list (which is >open to list members), you are redirected to: > >http://list.mchoralhealth.org/mailman/subscribe/cohp > >Instead of the proper page: > >http://list.mchoralhealth.org/mailman/roster/cohp > >What on earth could be causing this? I am contemplating saving out the >subscribers list and config file, deleting, and recreating the list. >Anyone have any less drastic suggestions? The listinfo.html template for this list has been messed up in editing. When the subscribe stuff was moved to the bottom, the line which becomes <FORM Method=POST ACTION="http://list.mchoralhealth.org/mailman/subscribe/cohp"> in the final page and which probably looks like <MM-Subscribe-Form-Start> in the template needs to be moved down below the other forms on the page. The real problem is that in the standard template, the subscribe form actually begins in the middle of the "About" section instead of within the "Subscribing" section. This leads to exactly the kind of error you made when trying to rearrange things on the page. ------------ end of quote I suggest that the following patch might help people avoid the above error when editing the template. --- mailman-2.1.5/templates/en/listinfo.html 2002-11-15 22:10:36.000000000 -0800 +++ mailman-mas/templates/en/listinfo.html 2004-10-22 12:25:30.000000000 -0700 @@ -26,7 +26,6 @@ <TD COLSPAN="1" WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFF0D0"> <MM-lang-form-start><MM-displang-box> <MM-list-langs> <MM-form-end> - <MM-Subscribe-Form-Start> </TD> </TR> <tr> @@ -63,6 +62,7 @@ <P> Subscribe to <MM-List-Name> by filling out the following form. + <MM-Subscribe-Form-Start> <MM-List-Subscription-Msg> <ul> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="2" CELLPADDING="2" Of course, if this is a good idea, it also applies (the idea, not the exact patch) to all the other languages as well. -- Mark Sapiro <msapiro(a)value.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan

1 0

Multi-slice qrunners to be fixed for 2.1.6? (Re: SF Patch 1008983)
by Brian Greenberg 22 Oct '04

22 Oct '04

Just wondering if this patch (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1008983&group_id=1…) has been noticed. It should have a fairly high priority, as it will result in any qrunner class with multiple slices failing completely in a short amount of time (hours to a few days, depending on the amount of traffic and number of slices). The fix is trivial, merely clarifying an if statement, so it should have minimal impact on other areas. Brian. ObOtherPatchPlug: Patch 1045656 reduces logfile chatter resulting from a lockfile race that does not impact operation. -- Brian Greenberg grnbrg(a)gmail.com

6 7

Re: [Mailman-Developers] Can we remove nimda.txt ?
by J C Lawrence 19 Oct '04

19 Oct '04

On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 21:07:30 -0400 Barry Warsaw <barry(a)python.org> wrote: > /Should/ we require VERP? My preference would be "no". Seconded. -- J C Lawrence ---------(*) Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. claw(a)kanga.nu He lived as a devil, eh? http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/ Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.

1 0

Member Adaptor Half Working
by Tim Morgan 19 Oct '04

19 Oct '04

I have managed to create my own MySQL-based member adaptor and have integrated it into one of my mailing lists using the extend.py mechanism. I was very pleased when it worked with very little debugging, however I found later it is only half working. When I go to the administrative interface of the list, I can see the members from the MySQL database in the membership list. However, when email is sent to the list from one of the member addresses, it is held for approval due to "post by non-member to member-only list". When approved, the message is added to the archive, but no one in the membership receives it. It's as if Mailman is using my Member Adaptor for some tasks, but using the old method of member storage for the important stuff, e.g. accepting and distributing messages. Any ideas?

1 0

FHS installation changes
by John Dennis 19 Oct '04

19 Oct '04

Overview: --------- Earlier I wrote about our (Red Hat's) desire to make mailman be FHS compliant, in part to allow mailman to fall under the protection of SELinux security policy which is file and directory based and as a consequence much easier to author when packages install into canonical locations (e.g. FHS). Previously we had installed all of mailman under /var/mailman (prefix=var_prefix=/var/mailman) and I had proposed a much simpler change of just setting prefix=/usr/lib/mailman. This took care of the majority of SELinux issues and limited the scope of changes. There was a concern that sites and administrators who were familiar either with our RPM, the upstream package, or were working with an existing installation would run afoul of the location changes and keeping them to absolute minimum was advantageous. However a few folks in private email pointed out that if changes were going to occur its best to do it all at once and not piecemeal, in other words endure the pain once. Thus I embarked on an exercise to make everything FHS compliant. There are two reasons I'm addressing the developer community here: 1) I want to apprise you of the exact changes, their rational, provide a patch against 2.1.5 and solicit review. 2) Test the results. Description: ------------ Currently the configuration allows for partitioning the mailman installation between two installation roots, prefix for non-modifiable files and var_prefix for variable data. This is a great start and covers 90% of the installation, but there remains a small set of items which even in this scheme are not FHS compliant, in summary: 1) config files located under /etc 2) pid file located under /var/run 3) queue files located under /var/spool 4) lock files located /var/lock 5) log files located under /var/log I think one could characterize the competing installation philosophies as follows: Mailman not knowing what type of system its going to be installed on elects to group all of its files together (makes perfect sense). FHS on the other hand says most packages share common traits and we group by functional component thus spreading out package installations across a diverse set of directories. Implementation: --------------- I discovered I had to add some new directories to configure and alter some of the *_DIR variables in Defaults.py.in so they pick up their values from configure. My strategy was to allow configure when run without providing any other parameters to produce the exact same set of installation defaults as previously existed so unless you specify a different installation mapping a user won't see any change. Configure added: --with_lock_dir --with_log_dir --with_config_dir --with_data_dir --with_pid_dir --with_queue_dir I also modified bin/check_perms so it was aware of the new directory specifications. The patch also made a few non FHS fixes to the install target of the Makefiles, some generic issues were discovered when testing check_perms. Those changes included: setting SETGID on the root prefix and var_prefix directories, check_perms demands all directories, including the roots are SETGID. The messages Makefile was creating a two level directory hierarchy but only setting SETGID on the child. Some of the "make install" logic seemed to depend on the property that new child directories created under a parent that was SETGID inherits the SETGID property. To the best of my understanding this is true only on Linux and Solaris and not generally portable. I replaced the use of the local mkinstalldirs (and subsequent chmod g+s) with what I believe is much more standard "install -d" and with the SETGID as part of the mode. All directories are created this way, nothing depends on inheritance. I also removed some ancient Makefile cruft that is no longer in use, variables no longer initialized by configure, etc. (just confusing, accidents waiting to happen if someone thought it was valid). Issues: ------- Most of the changes were isolated to whole directories and were well defined. Only the contents of DATA_DIR required splitting its contents across more than one directory. DATA_DIR contained both pickle files created during processing and what would be characterized as configuration files (e.g. password files, MTA alias files. sitelist.cfg). A new directory CONFIG_DIR was created (in FHS its /etc/mailman) to hold what has traditionally been in /etc (e.g. configuration, passwords, aliases, etc). The other things that were in DATA_DIR was left there. The mailman configuration file presented the biggest challenge and the one exception to FHS. The culprit is mm_cfg.py. This is really mailman's configuration file and it should be located in CONFIG_DIR (/etc/mailman). But there were several major problems with moving that file there. 1) It's executable python code, not a text file containing configuration parameters. Executable code should be in a "lib" or "bin" location. Why is this an issue? Because SELinux pays very close attention to who can execute and with precise control over a host of run time operations, its often based on directory location. But most importantly config files have to be editable, security properties transit when modified and new files pick up security properties of the directory that contains the file. We do not want any file created (or modified) in a configuration directory to pick up security permissions granting execution rights or for that matter any other run time security permissions. 2) The import of mm_cfg and its directory (Mailman) is all through the code, it would be very invasive to change. If mm_cfg continues to be executable python code as opposed to a text file then paths.py would have to be altered to prepend /etc/mailman to the import path, another significant security violation. 3) Any experienced mailman admin will know that mm_cfg.py is located with the rest of the mailman executable code under $prefix/Mailman and will expect to find this critical file there. I concluded for the above reasons that mm_cfg.py in the 2.1.x time frame was best handled as an FHS exception. Our rpm does however create a symbolic link from /etc/mailman/mm_cfg.py to $prefix/Mailman/mm_cfg.py so that it "appears" in configuration directory. This will prepare admins to start looking for mm_cfg along with the other configuration files. Note that security policies do not transit across links therefore there are no security policy issues with the sym link in /etc/mailman. Hopefully in MM 3.0 the configuration file will be textural which will eliminate the security policy issue. Also note that sitelist.cfg was completely moved to /etc/mailman as that is not executed, but rather "evaluated" (I think evaluation in /etc is fine, but I'm not 100% positive :-). Request for testing: -------------------- I have created RPM's with the changes outlined above and documented below, you may obtain them here: ftp://people.redhat.com/jdennis/mailman-2.1.5-26.i386.rpm ftp://people.redhat.com/jdennis/mailman-2.1.5-26.src.rpm I have tested the new rpm and have not found any problems. The modified check_perms does not report any problems. But I'm well aware my testing is limited and my comprehension of mailman is limited, it is inevitable something has been missed that only wider testing will reveal and I would appreciate that testing by experts. These changes are slated to appear in our Fedora Core 3 release which is closing in a couple of days in preparation for release. Testing prior to that close would be appreciated. Note that with Fedora Core 3 SELinux will be enabled by default in "targeted mode". This means that SELinux policy will be applied to key system services only, mail and hence mailman is one of those key system services. Ideally any testing should be done from "rawhide" with the 2.1.5-26 version of mailman and the new matching SELinux security policy, but I would be perfectly happy for any testing of the basic rpm even if its not running under targeted security policy. Patch File: ----------- Attached is the patch made against a virgin 2.1.5 tarball with the changes outlined above. User / Admin Documentation: --------------------------- The following is what I prepared for our installation documentation which can be found in /usr/share/doc/mailman-* IMPORTANT NOTE FOR USERS UPGRADING FROM A PREVIOUS RED HAT MAILMAN INSTALLATION OR THOSE FAMILIAR WITH "STANDARD MAILMAN INSTALLATIONS" Earlier Red Hat mailman rpms installed all of the mailman files under /var/mailman. This did not conform to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) and created security violations when SELinux is enabled. As of mailman-2.1.5-21 the following directory and file changes occurred: variable data (e.g. lists) is in /var/lib/mailman, library code, executables, and scripts are located in /usr/lib/mailman, lock files are in /var/lock/mailman, the pid file is in /var/run/mailman, qfiles are in /var/spool/mailman, and configuration files have been moved to the new /etc/mailman If you previously had mailman installed and have edited files in /var/mailman (e.g. configuration) you will need to move those changes to their new locations. The mapping of old locations to new locations is as follows: Directory Mapping: /var/mailman --> /var/lib/mailman /var/mailman/Mailman --> /usr/lib/mailman/Mailman /var/mailman/archives --> /var/lib/mailman/archives /var/mailman/bin --> /usr/lib/mailman/bin /var/mailman/cgi-bin --> /usr/lib/mailman/cgi-bin /var/mailman/cron --> /usr/lib/mailman/cron /var/mailman/data --> /var/lib/mailman/data /var/mailman/lists --> /var/lib/mailman/lists /var/mailman/locks --> /var/lock/mailman /var/mailman/logs --> /var/log/mailman /var/mailman/mail --> /usr/lib/mailman/mail /var/mailman/messages --> /usr/lib/mailman/messages /var/mailman/pythonlib --> /usr/lib/mailman/pythonlib /var/mailman/qfiles --> /var/spool/mailman /var/spool/mailman/qfiles --> /var/spool/mailman /var/mailman/scripts --> /usr/lib/mailman/scripts /var/mailman/spam --> /var/lib/mailman/spam /var/mailman/templates --> /usr/lib/mailman/templates /var/mailman/tests --> /usr/lib/mailman/tests File Mapping: /var/mailman/data/adm.pw --> /etc/mailman/adm.pw /var/mailman/data/creator.pw --> /etc/mailman/creator.pw /var/mailman/data/aliases --> /etc/mailman/aliases /var/mailman/data/virtual-mailman --> /etc/mailman/virtual-mailman /var/mailman/data/sitelist.cfg --> /etc/mailman/sitelist.cfg /var/mailman/data/master-qrunner.pid --> /var/run/mailman/master-qrunner.pid Discussion of directory and file relocation: Two new directories were created and three existing directories which were hardcoded are now configurable. PID_DIR is used to hold the process id and is new because FHS wants pid files to be located in /var/run. The FHS says when there is only a single pid file it should be located in /var/run/<name>.pid, and when there are multiple pid's files they should be located together in a subdirectory, /var/run/<name>/. Currently mailman only has a single pid file, but it does have multiple processes (qrunners). Also SELinux security policy is easier to write if processes are segregated into individual subdirectories. Therefore we elected to place the mailman pid file in its own subdirectory, there is some debate if this is 100% FHS compliant because there is only currently a single pid file, but this gives us greater future flexibility and is in the spirit of FHS. CONFIG_DIR is used to hold the site configuration files. FHS wants configuration files stored in /etc/mailman. Previously configuration files were mixed in with data files in DATA_DIR and with the run-time code (e.g. Mailman/mm_cfg.py). CONFIG_DIR continues to exist but is now restricted to data files (e.g. python pickle files). The password files, alias files, and .cfg (e.g. sitelist.cfg) files have been moved to CONFIG_DIR. mm_cfg.py which is the primary mailman configuration file was presented a bit of a dilemma. In theory it should be located in /etc/mailman, however it is executable code which argues it should be located with the other executable files, it has traditionally lived in $PREFIX/Mailman and experienced mailman admins will expect to find it there. Modifying all the mm_cfg import statements and paths.py was believed to be too invasive a change, and technically its part of the "Mailman" package and moving it would take it out of the package (although currently I don't think that presents any known issues). Instead a compromise approach was adopted, mm_cfg.py is symbolically linked into the /etc/mailman directory pointing to $PREFIX/Mailman/mm_cfg.py. Thus mm_cfg.py "appears" in the configuration directory but retains its traditional location, this was deemed a reasonable compromise for the mailman 2.1.x timeframe. sitelist.cfg has a symbolic link in its old location in the DATA_DIR pointing to its new location in the CONFIG_DIR. New Directories (can be specified as parameter to configure): CONFIG_DIR: default=$VAR_PREFIX/data FHS=/etc/mailman PID_DIR default=$VAR_PREFIX/data FHS=/var/run/mailman Existing directories that can now be specified as parameter to configure: LOCK_DIR: default=$VAR_PREFIX/locks FHS=/var/lock/mailman LOG_DIR: default=$VAR_PREFIX/logs FHS=/var/log/mailman QUEUE_DIR default=$VAR_PREFIX/qfiles FHS=/var/spool/mailman -- John Dennis <jdennis(a)redhat.com>

3 5

Pls Help regarding user's real name (Personalisation of emails)
by Suman Halder 19 Oct '04

19 Oct '04

Dear all, Please tell me how i can include mailing list users real name with their emails. (i.e. "someone" abc(a)xyz.com) and i also want to include their real names in the footers of respective mails. I know most of u know how to do it. So pls help me. I am using Mailman 2.1.5 Thanx, Suman Halder __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

2 1

Can we remove nimda.txt ?
by Tokio Kikuchi 18 Oct '04

18 Oct '04

Hi Developers, I have committed a few new feature in the Release_2_1-maint branch of mailman CVS. Please export/checkout the new source code and test them in your test/working mailman installation and feed back. Also, I want to ask 'nimda.txt' in the tests/msgs directory is of any use in the mailman source code. None of the test scripts refer to this file. I even did "find . | xargs grep nimda" only to get "Binary file ./tests/msgs matches". If none of you can find usage of this file, I want to remove from the source tree because some companies prohibit to download a file which contain nimda file. (I know it's nonsense but ...) Here is the diff for current NEWS file. (I believe Barry can fix my poor English.) More will come later because I get requests of merging patches personally. But, please be patient as I will check the patches and bugs for assigning to myself when it comes your turn. ;-) Cheers, -- Tokio Kikuchi, tkikuchi@ is.kochi-u.ac.jp Update of /cvsroot/mailman/mailman In directory sc8-pr-cvs1.sourceforge.net:/tmp/cvs-serv8029 Modified Files: Tag: Release_2_1-maint NEWS Log Message: update NEWS for new features and bug fixes Index: NEWS =================================================================== RCS file: /cvsroot/mailman/mailman/NEWS,v retrieving revision 2.43.2.28 retrieving revision 2.43.2.29 diff -u -d -r2.43.2.28 -r2.43.2.29 --- NEWS 18 May 2004 02:15:55 -0000 2.43.2.28 +++ NEWS 16 Oct 2004 04:54:33 -0000 2.43.2.29 @@ -6,7 +6,32 @@ 2.1.6 (XX-XXX-200X) - - Bugs and patches: 955381 (older Python compatibility). + - List owners can now set how many days to hold the messages in moderator + request queue. cron/checkdb automatically discard old messages. (790494) + + - Improved mail address sanity check. (1030228) + + - SpamDetect.py now checks attatchment header. (1026977) + + - Subject_prefix can be configured to include sequential number which + is taken from post_id variable. Also, the prefix is always put at + the start of the subject, i.e. like "[list-name] Re: original subject" + + - Now, list owners can use Scrubber to get the attachments scrubbed + (held in the web archive), if the site admin permits it in mm_cfg.py. + Also, introduced are SCRUBBER_DONT_USE_ATTACHMENT_FILENAME and + SCRUBBER_USE_ATTACHMENT_FILENAME_EXTENSION in Defaults.py for scrubber + behavior. (904850) + + - Filter attachments by filename extensions. (1027882) + + - Bugs and patches: 955381 (older Python compatibility), 1020102/1013079/ + 1020013 (fix spam filter removed), 665569 (newer postfix bounce + detection), 970383 (moderator -1 admin requests pending), 873035 + (subject handling in -request mail), 799166/946554 (makefile + compatibility), 872068 (add header/footer via unicode), 1032434 + (KNOWN_SPAMMERS check for multi-header), 1025372 (empty Cc:), + 789015 (fix pipermail URL), 2.1.5 (15-May-2004)

7 18

this mail-gid problem
by Fil 18 Oct '04

18 Oct '04

Hi, there is something really nasty about the way postfix chooses its UID/GID (recall: it's based on the UID of the alias file where the alias has been taken from). So if you have a somewhat complex configuration, you can have postfix invoke the mailman command from two different aliases files (/etc/aliases and /var/local/mailman/data/aliases), which don't necessarily have the same UID. And then you're toast by Mailman gid check. I would like to know if this check can be expanded to list all GID that mailman will accept? Or if I should just be more carful in setting up my system? :) The question is really a FAQ, but the answer is not fully satisfying. README.POSTFIX says: - When you configure Mailman, use the --with-mail-gid=mailman switch (actually, this will be the default if you configured Mailman after adding the `mailman' owner). Because the owner of the aliases.db file is `mailman', Postfix will execute Mailman's wrapper program as uid and gid mailman. I'd like to have either the possibility of configuring: --with-mail-gid=mailman,nogroup or an update in the README.POSTFIX file saying, more explicitly, that all mailman calls from postfix should be done through aliases files that all belong to the same user (mailman) that has the mailman GID... but I'm not sure of the wording that should be used - so weird is this. -- Fil

2 1

small scubber issue
by Fil 18 Oct '04

18 Oct '04

I've just tried the scrubber, and Apple's Mail does a bad job parsing the message's scrubbed URL (that is followed with the signature), so the hits went to Oct 16 15:02:44 2004 (29099) Private archive file not found: /var/local/mailman/archives/private/listes/attachments/20041016/3557b8e1/villaasen.jpg_______________________________________________ The underscores are the signature's first line -- Fil

3 3

Changing the name of a list already set-up
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 16 Oct '04

16 Oct '04

Is there an easy way of changing the name of a Mailman list already set up? Thanks, FN ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) Nr Convent Saligao 403511 GoaIndia Freelance Journalist P: 832-2409490 M: 9822122436 http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks http://fn.swiki.net http://www.ryze.com/go/fredericknoronha http://fn-floss.notlong.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Difficulties to send email across? Write to fredericknoronha at vsnl.net ============================================================================

1 0

get_sender ?
by Fil 16 Oct '04

16 Oct '04

I've just upgraded my system to CVS, and I get this: Oct 16 11:26:36 2004 (19525) Uncaught runner exception: 'str' object has no attribute 'get_sender' Oct 16 11:26:36 2004 (19525) Traceback (most recent call last): File "/var/local/mailman/Mailman/Queue/Runner.py", line 111, in _oneloop self._onefile(msg, msgdata) File "/var/local/mailman/Mailman/Queue/Runner.py", line 159, in _onefile sender = msg.get_sender() AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'get_sender' -- Fil

2 2

incorrect MIME?
by Dallas Bethune 13 Oct '04

13 Oct '04

I'm getting a report of some Mailman messages seemingly not having correct MIME encoding and the footer and sometimes the message itself appears as an attachment to the user. The originating messages may be coming primarily from AOL users. Has anyone else heard of this problem? Dallas

2 1

make finish?
by John Dennis 06 Oct '04

06 Oct '04

As part of our effort to make our mailman installation FHS compliant I've been going through the "make install" and check_perms process with a fine tooth comb looking for any discrepancies and discovered some installation anomalies in the virgin 2.1.5 tarball, but more on that later... In the meantime I wanted to ask a specific question. In the mailman-2.1.5/src/Makefile.in are commands to change the owner & permissions on $prefix/cgi-bin/private. The owner is changed to MAILMAN_USER with setuid permission. The problem is this part of the install never executes. Why? Its part of the "finish" make target and finish is not a dependency of anything. Most all the Makefiles have a finish target which are empty, only src/Makefile.in actually does something for the finish target. Is this Makefile cruft or should this be executed? Note that mailman-2.1.5/Makefile.in removes the "other" read permission on $prefix/archives/private, but it leaves group read/write. This suggests to me that $prefix/cgi-bin/private with setgid and arbitrary owner (e.g. without running the "finish") is fine and thus leads me to the conclusion the finish target is cruft. Is this right? -- John Dennis <jdennis(a)redhat.com>

2 1

bug in danish translation - which line?
by Klavs Klavsen 06 Oct '04

06 Oct '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi guys, There's a bug in the danish translation somewhere :( I get an error when trying to unsubscribe at this address (only when page is shown in danish): http://www.linuxpusher.dk/mailman/listinfo/linuxpusher-nyhedsbrev The error is: Traceback (most recent call last): ~ File "/usr/local/mailman/scripts/driver", line 87, in run_main ~ main() ~ File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/Cgi/options.py", line 239, in main ~ loginpage(mlist, doc, user, language) ~ File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/Cgi/options.py", line 813, in loginpage ~ table.AddRow([_("""In order to change your membership option, you must ~ File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/i18n.py", line 89, in _ ~ return tns % dict ValueError: unsupported format character 'p' (0x70) at index 105 how do I figure out the place in the mailman.po file where the problem is (which is where I suppose the problem must be?)? - -- Regards, Klavs Klavsen, GSEC - kl(a)vsen.dk - http://www.vsen.dk PGP: 7E063C62/2873 188C 968E 600D D8F8 B8DA 3D3A 0B79 7E06 3C62 "Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly." ~ --Henry Spencer -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFBY8gHPToLeX4GPGIRAn7OAJ4hN9Y5OqU2cqFN+0VvTSHWEg2CAQCgg0Qx RWyNyAWyy/fhxMnBW7Xe/3s= =Zt41 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

3 2

in-reply-to problem
by Karthikeyan 05 Oct '04

05 Oct '04

hello all, I am new to python and mailman. i have a problem, need to find a solution asap. when getting mails to the mailman from Lotus Domino client 5.0.10, the mail's does not have In-Reply-To header. Because of this the mail does not get threaded properly. pls tell me how i can solve this isue. Thanks Karthikeyan.S

3 6

Attachments directory
by Kory Wheatley 04 Oct '04

04 Oct '04

Question for all of you, I added the addition below code into the Scrubber.py script, and the filename extensions are used has specified and not changed, so that works. But when I go and view a Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel scrubbed document in the archives it will not bring up the right plugins and displays garbled characters and lines in the browser window. I know for a fact that I have the correct mime types specified on the Apache Web server. Now, here's where it gets strange, I can move that attachment word file out of the "/archives/private/mlist/attachments" directory and put it in another Mailman directory on the web server, and it will bring up the Microsoft Word or Excel plugin and display the document fine. The mime types I thought should be global on the web server, unless you have .htaccess file where you want to change the content type for that extension, which I don't see in the "attachments" directory. Any idea whats going on? + # i18n file name is encoded + lcset = Utils.GetCharSet(mlist.preferred_language) + filename = Utils.oneline(msg.get_filename(''), lcset) + fnext = os.path.splitext(filename)[1] + # For safety, we should confirm this is valid ext for content-type + # but we can use fnext if we introduce fnext filtering + if mm_cfg.SCRUBBER_USE_ATTACHMENT_FILENAME_EXTENSION: + ext = fnext + else: + ext = guess_extension(ctype, fnext) if not ext: # We don't know what it is, so assume it's just a shapeless # application/octet-stream, unless the Content-Type: is With this patch, site manager can set SCRUBBER_USE_ATTACHMENT_FILENAME_EXTENSION = True in mm_cfg.py to use attachment filename extension as is specified by the original attachment. I also want to merge patch id 1027882 so that really dangerous files can be trapped by MimeDel.py. -- Kory Wheatley Academic Computing Analyst Sr. Phone 282-3874 ######################################### Everything must point to him.

2 2

SCRUBBER Question
by Kory Wheatley 04 Oct '04

04 Oct '04

I have Scrubber enabled on my Mailman 2.1.5 configuration. It works fine stripping the attachments, except, why does it change a Microsoft Word extension ".doc" to a ".bin"? This makes it difficult to open the attachment, because you have to either save it to your hard drive and associate the file to open in the correct program, or choose which program to open it with. Why doesn't Scrubber just leave it at .doc and then when you click on the stripped attachment link, wouldn't it know to bring up the correct application and display the file? Or would it thing the content type is HTML? Any solutions or work around. Please respond this is critical that I know if there is something I can do. -- Kory Wheatley Academic Computing Analyst Sr. Phone 282-3874 ######################################### Everything must point to him.

6 13

Rewrite the email header to hide the "To" address
by Patrick Lam 04 Oct '04

04 Oct '04

Dear Experts, Is there any option (or change a small part of code) in Mailman that allow us to rewrite the "To" field, say "Undisclosed-recipients" so that the name of the mailing list will not be exposed to the recipients??? Actually, I am using Mailman for email distribution and receive a lot of virus emails as some of the recipients' machine is infected. I knew BCC can help, however, just afraid the users will forget . Million thanks!! Regards, Patrick ----------------------------------------------------- Patrick Lam Sze Fan Computer Officer II Medical Information Technology, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Tel:21455213 Fax:26375470 -----------------------------------------------------

1 0

Limiting numbers of members per list.
by Gustavo Franco 01 Oct '04

01 Oct '04

Hi list, I'm new here and i've tried to start sending a patch[0] to control the number of members per list.Can anyone check that? I keep it small as possible to see if the "engine" is right.I need your feedback, because i'm interested in contribute with more related features as described/requested on RFE #403310. [0] - #1029275 at sf.net Hope that helps, Gustavo Franco Information Network for the Third Sector http://www.rits.org.br

1 1

Content-filtering - is filtering of content-description possible?
by Andrzej Kasperowicz 01 Oct '04

01 Oct '04

Is in the Content filtering section possible to define only content-type? I suggest that it should be also possible to define Content-description. Because Pegasus Mail for example when is sending an attachment it adds content-descriprion, and mailman filter although removes the attachment itself, it does not remove the content-describtion causing to send to the list a message with the following text content:

1 0

How to change comment sent by Mailman with rejected posts?
by Andrzej Kasperowicz 01 Oct '04

01 Oct '04

When in Content filtering Section I set Reject as Action to take when a message matches the content filtering rules, then the sender of the message, which was rejected, receives the following e-mail from Mailman: "The message's content type was not explicitly allowed" How could I change that message? Is there any form where I could put new text of the message, and if there is no form, could you please add it in future version of Mailman? ak

1 0

Pickle-induced integration issues
by Rob Lanphier 01 Oct '04

01 Oct '04

Hi folks, I manage Helix Community, which makes pretty heavy use of Mailman as integrated into GForge. I'm moderately familiar with Mailman code, and pretty familiar with GForge. Of course, Perl is my native tongue, so I'm equally uncomfortable in both codebases ;-) Anyway, one thing that my users are constantly clamoring for is features that would come from tighter integration between GForge and Mailman. I've been mulling this over for a while, and it seems that deep integration is limited by the way that most Mailman data is stored in pickles. Since GForge is coded and pretty heavily bound to PHP. My options for integration between the two seem to be: 1. Implement alternate GForge authentication mechanism in Mailman 2. Implement alternate, PHP-compatible storage mechanism (e.g. SQL database) for everything currently stored in pickles 3. Implement pickle support in PHP 4. Implement IPC mechanism (e.g. SOAP, XML-RPC) as a Mailman control daemon, and call that from GForge I'm wondering if there are recommendations from this group. I'm also wondering if there have been any movements/efforts in any of these directions already. This is one of many problems that I plan to work on over time, and plan to contribute patches to the extent that they are useful to a larger community. If I'm lucky, I'll get budget to hire developers for this, but for now, I'll be doing this on the cheap. Thoughts? Rob -- Rob Lanphier, Development Support Manager - RealNetworks Helix Community: http://helixcommunity.org Development Support: http://www.realnetworks.com/products/support/devsupport

3 3