Mailman-Developers January 2016

mailman-developers@python.org

21 participants
33 discussions

before next release: disable backscatter in default installation
by Jo Rhett 07 Nov '22

07 Nov '22

Hi. There's a fairly simple problem here that needs to be addressed. And it's mostly a documentation/install problem. I'm hoping we can get this resolved before the next release. PROBLEM: Mailman comes out of the box ready to backscatter spam people. Yes, it's easy enough to fix. But because it comes stock this way, and is documented to install this way, most people install it to do this. Those of us who work in abuse departments are tired of hearing "well that's how Mailman works". We also object to having to teach people how to fix their mailman installations because it's not documented in the current manual. This is *exactly* like Sendmail 14 years ago. We didn't accept it then, and Sendmail fixed the problem. RESOLUTION: Mailman default installation should not backscatter in a default configuration. 1. Don't create backscatter aliases for subscribe/unsubscribe/etc by default. Nearly everyone uses web based signup. 2. Discard or hold messages from non-subscribers by default. I would think that it would be perfectly reasonable to have documentation on how to enable the 1980s-style -request / -subscribe etc aliases. However this documentation should have a note that this is against the AUP of nearly every network provider, and enabling it will likely cause them to get listed in various blacklists as a backscatter source. FYI: I know that this goes against the instincts of many old-time mailing list advocates here. But after dealing with a 10k/hour backscatter DoS my tolerance for this problem is understandably limited. Yes, it was a sweet day back in the 1980s. I was running a mailing list server and several UUCP gateways at the time, so I remember them well. But those days are past, and we need to deal with the reality of today. -- Jo Rhett Net Consonance : consonant endings by net philanthropy, open source and other randomness

21 168

Let's try to package mailman3 in Debian!
by Pierre-Elliott Bécue 21 Feb '16

21 Feb '16

Hey, As a Debian fanboy and also a mailman addict, I'd like to try packaging it in Debian. As I'm not a DD and as I'm not in a hurry, I'd like to take some time to think about what would be relevant. For that, I'd like to have some help. And I was suggested to come here and ask. I decided to use https://gitlab.com/groups/mailman as a basis for my work. First of all, to create the source package, I've to think about what to put in it. It seems that if I want to have a good source package, I need 5 repos : - Mailman - HyperKitty - Postorius - HyperKitty - MailMan Plugin - MailmanClient My first question is "Am I right?". And the second one is whould I consider looking into mailman-suite-doc and also have it in the source package? On another way, I also see that there is a standalone postorius repo and also some django project files for HyperKitty in another one. I have the impression it is more designed for people to work on as standalone - forkable projects for other features, and so I wouldn't need them in a Debian package. Am I also right? Thanks for your answer, I hope I'll be able to make this package look as you'd like. :) Cheers, -- PEB

5 13

Dropping Persona
by Simon Hanna 17 Feb '16

17 Feb '16

Hi, Mozilla is dropping Persona and shutting it down later this year [1]. Postorius and Hyperkitty will have to drop it, and use something else as a default login mechanism. I propose using the django authentication system by default and making it easy for people to add other authentication methods. If we go with django authentication we can either build everything ourselves (I did it for a couple of projects myself) or use some provided project. This is because django doesn't offer registration views and email confirmation. Also password changing and password resetting will have to be added. I know of two projects that do that already: django-user-accounts [2] It's part of the pinax platform, but can be used independently of the other components. It comes with everything we need and not much more. Note that the profiles of django-user-accounts can contain additional emails, which we probably don't want. It's officially supporting django 1.8 and 1.9. I'm not sure about our django dependency policy but since upstream has marked all pre 1.8 as being out of date, I think that we can move on as well... django-userena [3] Pretty much the same as django-user-accounts but it has additional "features" like messaging which we definitely don't need. It's not yet django 1.9 compatible but there is a merge request that adds support for it. Since we have two projects to maintain, I'd rather go with an external app. I guess it would be easiest to have exactly the same configurations for Postorius and Hyperkitty. In order to not duplicate any templates and other code, I'd propose to create a third project that has all the account functionality and put everything we need in there. In case we go with doing everything ourselves, I guess it's still better to create a separate app for that. My personal favorite is django-user-accounts for which I have some basic functionality in a merge request for Postorius so you can have a look at what needs to be changed. [4] Regardless of what approach we choose, we should also think of migrations. Existing internal django accounts can be easily migrated. We'll have to choose if we want to migrate the "social" accounts as well or just tell people to sign up again. We still have time for the transition, but I'd prefer dropping persona before the 3.1 release if that happens to come before the shutdown. What do you think? Simon [1]: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Identity/Persona_Shutdown_Guidelines_for_Reliers [2]: https://github.com/pinax/django-user-accounts [3]: https://github.com/bread-and-pepper/django-userena [4]: https://gitlab.com/mailman/postorius/merge_requests/73

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Re: [Mailman-Developers] Yet another newbie to the "Mailman"
by Abhilash Raj 16 Feb '16

16 Feb '16

Hi Tarunjit, On 01/24/2016 08:38 PM, Tarunjit Singh wrote: > Hi Fellow Developers, > > I am a graduate student at University of Toronto, Canada who likes to code > (mainly in python). > I just started to get to know the Mailman product by studying its > architecture available on Aosabook <http://www.aosabook.org/en/mailman.html> Awesome! That particular article really sums up the architecture of Mailman. If you want to know more, look at Barry's talk/notes from PyCon 2012. > and I am looking forward to contribute to the organization. After reading > some of the email chains, I am assuming the best place to start is by > looking into issues available here > <https://gitlab.com/mailman/mailman/issues/> once I have a better > understanding on the product but any newbie advice/guidance is welcome. Yes, you are on the right track. Try looking for issues that are marked "easy" or "beginner-friendly", though there aren't many. You can look for bugs in Postorius[1] or Hyperkitty[2] too if you like. They feed upon the REST API from the core and are Django based front-end and archiver respectively. Also, instead of solving some random bugs, you can also find a particular project from the ideas page that interests you and try solving some easy but small "parts" of the project that you can submit as an independent patch. Even if you don't end up working on that project, it would help you to know the wiring[*] inside mailman a lot better. [1]: https://gitlab.com/mailman/postorius/issues [2]: https://gitlab.com/mailman/hyperkitty/issues [*]: There is a lot of wiring and moving parts in mailman. So feel free about asking about anything that don't understand, even if its very trivial. > Thanks > Tarunjit Singh > _______________________________________________ > Mailman-Developers mailing list > Mailman-Developers(a)python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-developers > Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 > Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-developers%40python.org/ > Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-developers/raj.abhilash1%40… > > Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9 > -- thanks, Abhilash Raj

3 2

Re: [Mailman-Developers] Discussion On Project Idea "Preset List Settings Templates" .
by Abhilash Raj 10 Feb '16

10 Feb '16

On 01/30/2016 11:11 AM, Harshit Bansal wrote: > Hi Steve, > > On 1/27/16, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen(a)xemacs.org> wrote: >> Harshit Bansal writes: >> >> > Figure out how to store and access the styles as some of them are >> > defined in the source code and the ones created by the by users would >> > have to be stored in databases? >> >> You also need a read/print repr. A Python dict may be a reasonable >> one, but JSON, YAML, init, etc could all be considered. >> > > I am planning to use dictionary. What exactly I meant here was not a data structure but *how*? The data structure could simply be dictionary, but how would you populate the existing styles in the code? Notice that there is already an existing IStyle interface in the mailman right now, can you modify it somehow to dynamically update/fetch/store styles from the database instead of creating a new structure altogether? Barry: Is there a reason the styles in the src/styles/base.py are not an implementation of IStyle interface? If I am not wrong, you can define the styles in configuration too apart from the source code, so how do you pull those and update the database during the initialization? This is not a difficult question I want an answer to right now, just that the application should have implementation details too, even if they are a rough sketch. > >> > Styles will be stored in database in a dedicated table. >> >> You may want more than one table. Or you may be able to store them in >> the same table as currently used for list configs, with that table >> updated to allow "unstyled" as a value for its columns. (List id, >> for example, would be "unstyled", since it is supposed to be globally >> unique. Probably list name should be too, but domain would very >> likely be styled.) >> >> > The style manager will update all the styles 'predefined in the >> > source code' as well as the styles 'defined by users(by >> > implementing the IStyle interface)' to the database. Currently we >> > define a list of python import paths which are used for styles. >> >> Do you mean "configs"? >> >> > These will be collected in the style manager and then updated in >> > the database. These styles will be publicly viewable but the users >> > wouldn't be able to modify/change them(using Postorius) otherwise >> > we would have to update those changes in the files as well. >> >> I don't understand why you wouldn't be able to modify them. The >> presets probably should be read-only, and you might want to have a >> permissions system such that only the owner of the style can change >> it. Others would need to copy the style, modify the copy, and then >> apply it to their own lists. >> > > Here, I meant to say that the 'predefined-styles' would be > read-only(not modifiable) while the style defined by the user(using > Postorius) would be readable/editable as per the permissions system. You may want to expand more on the *permissions system* in you application as that is an important part of this. Also, how are you going to propagate that to the Postorius via the API. > >> > Should we even allow changing list styles after lists have been >> > created? >> >> Certainly. Consider the case where a dramatic improvement in MUAs >> commonly used by a subscriber base makes it possible to use Wrap >> Message instead of Munge From as DMARC mitigation. You want to change >> all your lists in one go if they all have the same subscriber base >> (consider an enterprise setting where the subscribers are mostly using >> enterprise webmail). >> >> > Does changing a list style in database/source code changes >> > the settings for list? >> >> IMO, yes. But source code changes by the Mailman Project would not be >> allowed, except with a looong deprecation/obsoletion cycle, and source >> code changes should be documented as an operation with potential (bad) >> surprises for users. >> >> > I think there is no valid reason to not to allow changing list styles >> > after they have been created but there are two attributes about which >> > I am not sure these are: >> > 1: default_member_action >> > 2: default_nonmember_action >> > The value of these style attributes are first copied to >> > 'member.moderation_action'(moderation_action column of member table) >> > and then this saved value is used to decide the correct moderation >> > action. So changing the value of 'default_member_action' and >> > 'default_nonmember_action' have no effect on the saved values and >> > these will not change. This will have an undesired effect. >> >> I think that this is not a problem. We need to initialize all >> attributes to valid values, and this will probably be hard-coded in >> the source. Then we overlay this with site styles, domain styles, >> list styles, and user attributes, and do the lookup in the opposite >> order. In principle, for each attribute you would drill down as long >> as the value at the current level is "unstyled". In practice, you'd >> keep a cache of the current results of such lookups for users and >> lists to avoid slamming the database, and some way of identifying when >> the cache is out of date (such as a change "generation counter"). >> Note that this explains some of the reason why source code changes >> need to be treated with care -- in some sense they are always >> "generation 0" because it's impossible to know in advance what >> generation the installlation is at. I *think* we have had a discussion before about what should be a better default value for member.moderation_action and nonmeember.moderation_action. Instead of just copying them to the field, we could set it to defer in which it case the lookup automatically picks up the value of the list's default_(non)member_action. Or we could *always* copy the default styles to a new style that the list owner owns and can use for his other lists. This way he can change values in the default styles too. This way, we don't have to deal with user's being affected by the change in the default styles. Along with that we could provide them with an option to update the styles automatically from the default (when it changes) to fetch any new values added/removed/updated. This however might introduce a *lot* of redundancy in the database. Just a possibility, not very sure if this is a good idea. >> >> > So I think whenever a user changes these two attributes then we >> > will have to ask the user if he wants to change the saved values or >> > not. Another approach could be to leave these values unchanged and >> > bring this behavior to the knowledge of the user and if he wants >> > then he can manually change the moderation action of some selected >> > members but new members will automatically have their >> > moderation_action set to new the values. >> >> This is the current behavior for default_* actions; I don't see why it >> would change with the introduction of styles. >> > > I wanted to ask that what should be the behavior when a user changes > the 'default_member_action' and 'default_nonmember_action' attributes. > Since, the values of these attributes are copied to the > 'member.moderation_action' at the time of the creation of a new > member. So, any changes made to the 'default_member_action' and > 'default_nonmember_action' attributes will not be reflected in the > already created members which I think may not be the desirable > behavior. > Please do correct me if am wrong somewhere. See my comment above about the default behavior. >> > How to apply styles to lists after they have been created? I will >> > expose the styles via REST API. Whenever the user(admin) will >> > change a mailing list's style in Postorius, it will automatically >> > call 'new_style.apply()' function which will update the mailinglist >> > table with the new values. This will change the list style. >> >> Be careful here. Since some styles percolate up to user level, a site >> with hundreds of thousands of lists and millions of users (they >> exist!) could really slam the database. The whole system would grind >> to a halt. >> >> > After implementing all these things, there will be two ways to create >> > and update styles : >> > 1: Using Postorius >> > 2: By defining a class implementing the IStyle interface and saving it >> > to a file. >> >> I don't see why you would allow 2 at all. IStyle is an internal >> thing, which would be used to provide a Python interface to the >> database backend. Unless you're thinking of dynamic styles (eg, >> theming the list page according to day of week or server load :-)? >> > > Earlier, I was thinking to implement a way to add new styles using > Postorius as well as by adding a file to the source code containing a > class implementing the 'IStyle' interface to define the new style. But > now I have dropped this idea as I think that it would not be that > useful. You cannot let users add stuff in the source code, configurations are meant for the values that can be adjusted by users. AND you can add styles via configs. -- thanks, Abhilash Raj

3 2

Re: [Mailman-Developers] help in testing
by Barry Warsaw 31 Jan '16

31 Jan '16

On Jan 30, 2016, at 08:49 PM, Aditya Divekar wrote: >I have just started working on the mailman project. I am currently trying >to solve Issue #186 and need help in testing, to check if my recommended >fix is correct. any help would be appreciated. There are some comments about manual testing in the issue, but for any branch to land, it needs to have a test case that covers the new code. There's lots and lots of examples of both doctests and unittests, and I will try to add some more useful information to the in-tree documentation. If you're unable to write a test for your branch, please indicate as such in your merge request, and I will take a crack at it. Note though that an MR without tests can mean a delay in merging. For now, see src/mailman/docs/START.rst and DEVELOP.rst. Cheers, -Barry

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Re: [Mailman-Developers] help in testing
by Abhilash Raj 30 Jan '16

30 Jan '16

Hi Aditya, On 01/30/2016 07:19 AM, Aditya Divekar wrote: > I have just started working on the mailman project. I am currently trying > to solve Issue #186 and need help in testing, to check if my recommended > fix is correct. any help would be appreciated. I have added a comment on the Issue. > _______________________________________________ > Mailman-Developers mailing list > Mailman-Developers(a)python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-developers > Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 > Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-developers%40python.org/ > Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-developers/raj.abhilash1%40… > > Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9 > -- thanks, Abhilash Raj

1 0

Re: [Mailman-Developers] Discussion On Project Idea "Preset List Settings Templates" .
by Stephen J. Turnbull 30 Jan '16

30 Jan '16

Harshit Bansal writes: > Figure out how to store and access the styles as some of them are > defined in the source code and the ones created by the by users would > have to be stored in databases? You also need a read/print repr. A Python dict may be a reasonable one, but JSON, YAML, init, etc could all be considered. > Styles will be stored in database in a dedicated table. You may want more than one table. Or you may be able to store them in the same table as currently used for list configs, with that table updated to allow "unstyled" as a value for its columns. (List id, for example, would be "unstyled", since it is supposed to be globally unique. Probably list name should be too, but domain would very likely be styled.) > The style manager will update all the styles 'predefined in the > source code' as well as the styles 'defined by users(by > implementing the IStyle interface)' to the database. Currently we > define a list of python import paths which are used for styles. Do you mean "configs"? > These will be collected in the style manager and then updated in > the database. These styles will be publicly viewable but the users > wouldn't be able to modify/change them(using Postorius) otherwise > we would have to update those changes in the files as well. I don't understand why you wouldn't be able to modify them. The presets probably should be read-only, and you might want to have a permissions system such that only the owner of the style can change it. Others would need to copy the style, modify the copy, and then apply it to their own lists. > Should we even allow changing list styles after lists have been > created? Certainly. Consider the case where a dramatic improvement in MUAs commonly used by a subscriber base makes it possible to use Wrap Message instead of Munge From as DMARC mitigation. You want to change all your lists in one go if they all have the same subscriber base (consider an enterprise setting where the subscribers are mostly using enterprise webmail). > Does changing a list style in database/source code changes > the settings for list? IMO, yes. But source code changes by the Mailman Project would not be allowed, except with a looong deprecation/obsoletion cycle, and source code changes should be documented as an operation with potential (bad) surprises for users. > I think there is no valid reason to not to allow changing list styles > after they have been created but there are two attributes about which > I am not sure these are: > 1: default_member_action > 2: default_nonmember_action > The value of these style attributes are first copied to > 'member.moderation_action'(moderation_action column of member table) > and then this saved value is used to decide the correct moderation > action. So changing the value of 'default_member_action' and > 'default_nonmember_action' have no effect on the saved values and > these will not change. This will have an undesired effect. I think that this is not a problem. We need to initialize all attributes to valid values, and this will probably be hard-coded in the source. Then we overlay this with site styles, domain styles, list styles, and user attributes, and do the lookup in the opposite order. In principle, for each attribute you would drill down as long as the value at the current level is "unstyled". In practice, you'd keep a cache of the current results of such lookups for users and lists to avoid slamming the database, and some way of identifying when the cache is out of date (such as a change "generation counter"). Note that this explains some of the reason why source code changes need to be treated with care -- in some sense they are always "generation 0" because it's impossible to know in advance what generation the installlation is at. > So I think whenever a user changes these two attributes then we > will have to ask the user if he wants to change the saved values or > not. Another approach could be to leave these values unchanged and > bring this behavior to the knowledge of the user and if he wants > then he can manually change the moderation action of some selected > members but new members will automatically have their > moderation_action set to new the values. This is the current behavior for default_* actions; I don't see why it would change with the introduction of styles. > How to apply styles to lists after they have been created? I will > expose the styles via REST API. Whenever the user(admin) will > change a mailing list's style in Postorius, it will automatically > call 'new_style.apply()' function which will update the mailinglist > table with the new values. This will change the list style. Be careful here. Since some styles percolate up to user level, a site with hundreds of thousands of lists and millions of users (they exist!) could really slam the database. The whole system would grind to a halt. > After implementing all these things, there will be two ways to create > and update styles : > 1: Using Postorius > 2: By defining a class implementing the IStyle interface and saving it > to a file. I don't see why you would allow 2 at all. IStyle is an internal thing, which would be used to provide a Python interface to the database backend. Unless you're thinking of dynamic styles (eg, theming the list page according to day of week or server load :-)? Steve

2 1

help in testing
by Aditya Divekar 30 Jan '16

30 Jan '16

I have just started working on the mailman project. I am currently trying to solve Issue #186 and need help in testing, to check if my recommended fix is correct. any help would be appreciated.

1 0

GSOC-2016
by Manish Bisht 28 Jan '16

28 Jan '16

Hello Devs, I am Manish Bisht. I am in second year of my engineering in information technology. I want to provide the code for Ubuntu. I have created many projects outside of my college projects. You can see all at https://github.com/manishbisht. I am familiar with many languages some of them are HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, C/C++, Java, and I am currently learning Python also. Also apart from my college hours i have also started my own startup with Run4Offers (http://www.run4offers.com/) I have also interested in Graphics Designing also. I have the knowledge of AdobePhotoshop, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe In Design. I have created many images of various festivals for my College Entrepreneurship Cell(TOPAZ). This is all about about me. I am new to open source communities. I want to work on the GSOC-2016 projects of Mailman and want to start contributing to it. Can anyone please help me in contributing to Mailman. Hope to see you soon :) Thanks :)

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Mailman-Developers January 2016