Mailman 3 June 2019 - Mailman-Developers

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

Integration of SMS alerts for moderator approval
by sandeep kumar 12 Jul '19

12 Jul '19

Hi Team We are using mailman 2 in our production and we are testing mailman 3 to use in production. We have requirement in mailman 3 that is when a moderator receives email notification for a list posted he should also receive SMS alerts saying that so and so list is pending for approval.We have our SMS gateway setup and we are using this sending otp's,alerts etc.., now we want to integrate this service in sending moderator approval alerts Please provide a path and your valuable inputs to achieve this. This would be useful in future releases of mailman also. -- Regards Sandeep Kumar +91-7702033396

4 7

Alembic not going back to previous migration?
by Aaryan Bhagat 28 Jun '19

28 Jun '19

Currently, I am working on [this](https://gitlab.com/mailman/mailman/merge_requests/528) PR. A problem arose with some SQLite tests and I made changes to the latest migration file. This is my output of `alembic -c src/mailman/config/alembic.cfg history` command >2d2d0ef0828f -> 58858f75303c (head), Added new bounce attributes >15401063d4e3 -> 2d2d0ef0828f, add tag column >b2e694dfde35 -> 15401063d4e3, roster_visibility >89913992dd5a -> b2e694dfde35, unique email contraint >dfe82cf73702 -> 89913992dd5a, remove mime_is_default_digest >3f31035ed0d7 -> dfe82cf73702, add_alias_domain >4bd95c99b2e7 -> 3f31035ed0d7, further_increase_pendedkeyvalue_value_size >3002bac0c25a -> 4bd95c99b2e7, Fix template password field. >a46993b05703 -> 3002bac0c25a, dmarc_attributes >448a93984c35 -> a46993b05703, increase pendedkeyvalue value size >fa0d96e28631 -> 448a93984c35, unsubscription_workflow >7b254d88f122 -> fa0d96e28631, File cache and template manager. >d4fbb4fd34ca -> 7b254d88f122, Members and list moderation action. >bfda02ab3a9b -> d4fbb4fd34ca, Add a numerical position column to sort header matches. >781a38e146bf -> bfda02ab3a9b, Ban indexes >70af5a4e5790 -> 781a38e146bf, MailingList indexes >47294d3a604 -> 70af5a4e5790, digests >3e09bb4a5dc -> 47294d3a604, Pendable indexes >33bc0099223 -> 3e09bb4a5dc, Add indexes on the Member table. >42756496720 -> 33bc0099223, Add member indexes >2bb9b382198 -> 42756496720, header_matches >16c2b25c7b -> 2bb9b382198, Workflow state table >46e92facee7 -> 16c2b25c7b, List subscription policy >33e1f5f6fa8 -> 46e92facee7, add_serverowner_domainowner >51b7f92bd06c -> 33e1f5f6fa8, Migration from Python 2 to Python 3. ><base> -> 51b7f92bd06c, Initial migration. On doing `alembic -c src/mailman/config/alembic.cfg current -v` >Current revision(s) for sqlite:////home/aaryan/mailman/mailman/var/data/mailman.db: >Rev: 2d2d0ef0828f >Parent: 15401063d4e3 >Path: /home/aaryan/mailman/mailman/src/mailman/database/alembic/versions/2d2d0ef0828f_add_tag_column.py > > add tag column > > Revision ID: 2d2d0ef0828f > Revises: 15401063d4e3 > Create Date: 2019-04-27 08:58:48.496854 But when I run `alembic -c src/mailman/config/alembic.cfg upgrade head`. It gives a long traceback, the main gist of which is >sqlalchemy.exc.OperationalError: (sqlite3.OperationalError) duplicate column name: bounce_info [SQL: 'ALTER TABLE address ADD COLUMN bounce_info BLOB'] (Background on this error at: >http://sqlalche.me/e/e3q8) The whole traceback is [here[(https://gist.github.com/berserker1/6b214626042a6c976f780b33d2d12f32) I did `alembic -c src/mailman/config/alembic.cfg downgrade 2d2d0ef0828f` to ensure it has restored to the previous version but still, again the error pops up Basically, Alembic is not able to properly downgrade and hence recognising a duplicate column when I upgrade. Any pointer to this would be helpful.

2 2

GSoD 2019: Issue in submitting proposal
by Ananya Maiti 28 Jun '19

28 Jun '19

Hi GSoD '19 mentors, Google is accepting proposal responses in a google form this time and is asking to add the proposal content in the description field of the google form [1] . I updated my proposal after initial review and then got a "Response is too large" error while submitting, I have emailed gsod-support and also posted in their slack channel. But still didn't get any reply. Currently the response has the initial draft of my proposal before the review. Since the issue is related to the content size and the deadline is also tomorrow, do you have any suggestion regarding this? Should I shorten my proposal content or if I can omit sections which are not highly important like Personal Information, Resume links, Reason why I am apt since quite many of these information is available in the form responses ? Thanks, Ananya

2 2

Build documentation for mailman suite doc
by Ananya Maiti 26 Jun '19

26 Jun '19

Hi all, I recently opened an issue [1] in mailman-suite-doc GitLab repo regarding adding build documentation. Let me know if it would be useful. I am interested to work on the issue. [1] : https://gitlab.com/mailman/mailman-suite-doc/issues/24 Thanks, Ananya

1 0

Archive entry not created on creating list in development environment
by Ananya Maiti 26 Jun '19

26 Jun '19

Hi all, I am trying to test a local installation of mailman suite. I have set-up mailman suite using instructions from [1]. I have also setup postfix as the mail server. Also I have added the absolute path to mailman-hyperkitty.cfg to maiman.cfg in my local setup. But when I create a list from postorious web ui a record for the same is not created in hyperkitty. I have to manually add a record for the same from the Django admin interface. Is this expected ? If not do I have to add any additional setting to get the behavior. [1]: http://docs.mailman3.org/en/latest/devsetup.html Thanks, Ananya

3 4

GSoD 2019 proposal: Redesign GNU Mailman Documentation Structure
by Ananya Maiti 26 Jun '19

26 Jun '19

Hi all, Please review my GSoD proposal titled "Redesign GNU Mailman Documentation Structure". Here is the link [1] to the proposal. I have enabled comment access in the doc. I understand the deadline to submit proposals is very near, But it would be great to have your review before my final submission. [1]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M1YSl0PITKc7SOWD4aQ4lYjCxQvDIuhzVfXYuJM… Thanks and Regards, Ananya

1 0

Mailman still sending mails when `DEVMODE` is on?
by Aaryan Bhagat 25 Jun '19

25 Jun '19

Currently, I have been trying to run a working instance of Mailman up and running. I have edited the `mailman.cfg` file enabling devmode. The current output of `mailman info` command is the following >GNU Mailman 3.2.3 (La Villa Strangiato) >Python 3.7.1 (default, Dec 14 2018, 19:28:38) >[GCC 7.3.0] >config file: /home/aaryan/mailman/mailman-suite/mailman-suite_project/var/etc/mailman.cfg >db url: sqlite:////home/aaryan/mailman/mailman-suite/mailman-suite_project/var/data/mailman.db >devmode: ENABLED >REST root url: http://localhost:8001/3.1/ >REST credentials: restadmin:restpass Still, after when I created the `superuser` and tried to log in after as superuser after hosting up a local instance, it says >Verify your email address >We have sent an e-mail to you for verification. Follow the link provided to finalize the signup process. Please contact us if you do not receive it within a few minutes. This should not be the expected behaviour in devmode right? It should bypass this I believe. Am I missing something here?

2 3

Google's Season of Docs - An Introduction
by Burton Samograd 25 Jun '19

25 Jun '19

Hello, Google's Season of Docs is here and I'm thinking I will try and participate. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdGDY4LC_7OknP2zi90JTkH0qDrCm1AQFi… I've got my eye on the MailMan program as of now, something I think is a very powerful way to manage email lists using standard tools. Often the best note system is to write to yourself. Or maybe some other personas. MacOS has postfix installed by default, did you know what? Imagine a swarm of messages going to different accounts on the same system. Internal messaging system, powered by working software with no arbitrary limits and resources as the signalling system. Now that's an extenable, high level messaging system similar to the plumbing system on plan9. Having a high level interface for that might be interesting. Now I wonder if .forward files work with pipes in postfix on MacOS by default… I will be looking over the pages more thoroughly with regards to what is wanted to be documented this year, but I thought I would introduce myself. Burton Samograd

2 1

Rich Text support in Hyperkitty
by Abhilash Raj 22 Jun '19

22 Jun '19

Hi All, I have been recently working on adding rich text support through markdown in Hyperkitty so that emails can be made easier to read. The core design idea in my mind when working on this was building something that doesn't bother writers of plain text emails too much, but allows people to write emails in markdown. The supported syntax is limited Markdown, for example: Hyperkitty's Markdown Syntax ============================ - List items are supported - Even nested ones - Headers with `#` aren't supported, mostly due to their widespread use as comments in code shared on mailing lists. - You can **emphasize** text and _itcalize_ them too - Block code and `inline code` works. - URLs work like they usually do. - Images _do work_, but are disabled by default because of their potential for tracking users. They need to be enabled by administrators through a configuration flag. ``` def sample(): return "yay" ``` While text intentionally written for Markdown rending looks pretty good, plain text sometimes isn't as good. I have applied my branch[1] on both the Mailman installations for these two lists (mail.python.org & lists.mailman3.org). Any feedback or bug reports on weird looking stuff is welcome here or directly [on my PR][1] [1]: https://gitlab.com/mailman/hyperkitty/merge_requests/160 -- thanks, Abhilash Raj (maxking)

2 2

Bounce processing should be done to only USER entities?
by Aaryan Bhagat 20 Jun '19

20 Jun '19

This is with reference to a discussion in a thread [1] here: I need two requirements : - I need an object of a user which has an attribute which tells us what are all the emails of the following user. - I need an object of an email having an attribute which tells us what mailing-lists that email has been subscribed to. For the first one, we already have a User model each object of which is mapped to more than one Address objects For the second one, we technically have the Address class but it does not contain the details as to which lists email has subscribed. What we do know is an object of Member class is created when we subscribe. Pointers on the above would be helpful I can do the following, Create a many-to-one relationship between Member and Address Variables for processing bounces including CURRENT_BOUNCE_SCORE and CROSSED_OR_NOT will be in the Member object MODIFIED_THRESHOLD variables will be in Address model ( Please refer to my proposal[2] under the "Approach and Detailed Explanation" Section if the above seems foreign to you ) Is the following approach plausible or am I missing something here? [1]:https://mail.python.org/archives/list/mailman-developers@python.org/thre… [2]:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Pv-EuIwrhKM-_inf2HMHVgVzRKjEUwRl-_fl…

5 28

Problems with Migration from Mailman 2 to Mailman 3
by ariessa.norramli＠gmail.com 15 Jun '19

15 Jun '19

Hello everyone. May I know what kind of problems you have with migration from Mailman 2 to Mailman 3? What do you think should be added to improve the current documentation of 'Migrating from Mailman 2.1 to Mailman 3'? Why is the current documentation insufficient? Link to the documentation: http://docs.list.org/en/latest/migration.html I'm applying for GSOD 2019 with the project title of 'Instructions for Migrating from Mailman 2 to Mailman 3'. I'd really appreciate any feedback for my proposal. Link to my GSOD application proposal: http://bit.ly/ariessa_migration_gsod_application Thank you. Best Regards, Ariessa

1 0

Google Season of Docs
by Noor Binte Amir 13 Jun '19

13 Jun '19

Hi! I'm a software developer and technical writer interested in contributing to GNU Mailman documentation. I'm a Google Summer of Code student but when I heard about this program, I realized it was a great chance to expand my technical writing experience and work closely with another organization that intrigues me. As for recommended skills, I have experience working in a very similar capacity. I have a firm grasp over version control using git and I'm a Python programmer as well. I also have a Linux machine and have setup development environments for projects such as this before. I'd like to know if my skills make me a good candidate and whether there's other key capabilites that would be worth mentioning and building. I'd also like to get my proposal reviewed. Hoping to hear from you soon. Regards, Noor Binte Amir, NUST H-12

2 1

Questions Regarding the Mailman Documentation's Style
by ariessa.norramli＠gmail.com 13 Jun '19

13 Jun '19

Hello everyone, What is the preferred style for the documentation? I noticed that in some part of the documentation, there exists contractions and the documentation is written informally. Is there a template or specific guidelines for writing documentation? If not, can I propose a new template so that further documentation can be created coherently? Thank you. Best Regards, Ariessa

3 4

Subscribing members to list through 2 different methods?
by Aaryan Bhagat 12 Jun '19

12 Jun '19

Upon searching more regarding various models in the Gnu Mailman, I learned that technically first a "User" entity is created and then a "Member" entity can be created in correspondence to a "Mailing-List" entity. For example >harry_member = mlist.subscribe(harry_user) This, however, is totally different to the subscribe function given in the mailmanclient doc, where you actually do: >harry_member = mlist.subscribe(harry_email,harry_display_name,pre_verified...) Why is this behaviour desired? Pointers on this would be appreciated

3 9

Possible Bug in the Docs of GNU Mailman?
by Aaryan Bhagat 11 Jun '19

11 Jun '19

Upon searching for various models in the docs of GNU Mailman ( One which is on ReadTheDocs ), I entered a query "Users" which gave me the result [1]. The problem is that the links to the pages which the search yielded, gave 404. This behaviour is rather peculiar and if it is reproducible in other machines ( other browsers specifically ), then it is either problem with our docs or with ReadTheDocs as a whole. It was an observation worth noticing and pondering about hence I created this thread. If this behaviour is expected or not reproducible or there is something I am missing here, then kindly provide some more pointers on this. [1] : https://mailman.readthedocs.io/en/release-3.0/search.html?q=Users&check_key…

4 7

Re: How strict are the dependencies on the django-compressor related backends?
by Christian Ehrhardt 11 Jun '19

11 Jun '19

On Fri, Mar 15, 2019 at 10:19 AM Jonas Smedegaard <dr(a)jones.dk> wrote: > > Quoting Christian Ehrhardt (2019-03-15 06:39:08) > > On Fri, Mar 15, 2019 at 12:08 AM Abhilash Raj <maxking(a)asynchronous.in> wrote: > > > On Thu, Mar 14, 2019, at 1:42 PM, Jonas Meurer wrote: > > > Christian Ehrhardt: > > > > I was evaluating the Dependencies of mailman3 in Ubuntu and I was > > > > wondering if I could cut them down a bit. One thing that got my > > > > attention is the dependency from mailman3-web [1] to nodejs for > > > > less [2] and ruby-sass [3]. > > > > > > > > I was wondering if we could by default not install > > > > node-less/ruby-sass and what exactly that would imply. > > less is a reinvention of sass: It is often adaptable to sass with a > simple patch. > > Original sass processor was ruby-sass, but nowadays a better processor > is sassc. Or if you want to integrated processing with Python then > python3-libsass which uses same core library for its processing. > > I have not looked closely on mailman3, but I highly doubt there is a > real need for dynamic processing of less/sass during runtime. Yeah I doubt that as well. In the meantime I also found [1] which seems to have come to the same conclusion for the majority of default setups. For upstream to disable it by default it was mentioned that there is a need for a customize kit which seems fine [1]. There is a further argument to disable the live compressors, at least as I read COMPRESS_OFFLINE that seems helpful for production setups anyway to speed up and safe CPU load. So while upstream waits until a "customize kit" exists to switch defaults, as a downstream like Debian/Ubuntu I wonder if we already could: - drop sass/less compilers to a suggest - disable the live compression in the default config that we ship - keep the config commented-out to make it easy for admins that want to enable it later - pre-compress at build time and enable compress_offline for speed - maybe call `django_admin compress` [3][4] or similar at build time? - having sass/less as build dependencies seems much safer than pulling it in at runtime @Jonas M.: what do you think about [2] (again maybe after Buster)? Sorry to not know more of this yet, but I hope suggesting what I think might work helps to get us the right way. [1]: https://lists.mailman3.org/archives/list/mailman-users@mailman3.org/thread/… [2]: https://salsa.debian.org/paelzer-guest/mailman-suite/commits/make-sass-less… [3]: https://django-compressor.readthedocs.io/en/latest/usage/#offline-compressi… [4]: https://gitlab.com/mailman/django-mailman3/issues/17#note_81807465 > - Jonas > > -- > * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt > * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ > > [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > > iQIzBAABCgAdFiEEn+Ppw2aRpp/1PMaELHwxRsGgASEFAlyLbfwACgkQLHwxRsGg > ASHlqw//Vkkke6aulFYeLkq7vQOIt08j+DMMDBpJ/vXapwtQJ2WbWEYsHbbFv75v > k80SILudsOyGMwQ0HKRGqDmhJw2Voi9mWoV2fBQeCQn5w/G9N2Ddw8hAMrzGsLxO > C2FOV8Db0irJ6FS6AO0YQpAselKnnX387AvyWBCpVcWWuydf46pMkPpYajVJTvZg > UZxtBh1epmv/VdQlw2OeLrV+bZJWfjULjr1qFPYdqFnEUnOA2cC44RMagxSV7kNh > JmCc7DvL/VjX/dkPHJCW/VvRrvfxzOR4bimVr7BeuvcjNljlUnKhRwP+PQZt80gp > CbOoVCeEOFJuHwqTlvasUpxo/aSZZPFeF8aQBtdyzefEx9QjjGwx8bYQFn+Zo0CX > TVsB7qWyCwMZIR0DP5+A8ityXQb+FwOTXjySMzO+Z/rA9+h1PHZrK+WJMB0O9z5r > hWYDk3jGSJIkwL+AemE06gUPuSaXZWhzoduI2Mbzs8a20qhrW08Ij338RVGalyhC > QHJT4JoI3bXylaK+IEpH9xxUEW0i8gOge32dBFiqg9/dGFm06Tf3z8dUuBFyXgG3 > BsNJaO6Cn3ghfNS/OfNN04nPS+luPqPQ1r9yZMztrIqwv8oOWyVj1YQpKW1vRN/v > BK/2IpBA+6O3OE2X4RCW8pouwPmsSgMmXpIsuFE61dox/8tOPmE= > =490O > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Christian Ehrhardt Software Engineer, Ubuntu Server Canonical Ltd

3 4

Proposal for GSoD'19
by ADITI GUPTA 09 Jun '19

09 Jun '19

Hello, I have created my proposal for GSoD'19. It would be really helpful if you can go through it and provide your feedback. ( https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H-h2_TFDAl_o8c0WeT60OkeZedcDicGIPripaVM… ) Also, I found a small typo error/ spelling mistake in the documentation. The word relevant is spelled wrong. https://postorius.readthedocs.io/en/latest/development.html#view-authorizat… Thank You, Aditi ᐧ

3 6

Season of docs' 19
by Ayush Goel 06 Jun '19

06 Jun '19

Hey! I am Ayush Goel, an undergraduate student at IIIT Delhi and am interested in working with GNU Mailman for the Google Season of Docs 19. Currently, I have already joined the mailing list and am setting up Mailman on my Linux machine(will reach out at the mailing list if I encounter any problem). Please guide me on how to proceed further with the application. Looking forward to hearing from you! Yours sincerely Ayush Goel IIIT-Delhi

4 4

Season of docs' 19 Doubts
by ADITI GUPTA 05 Jun '19

05 Jun '19

Hello, I went through the project ideas page of the GNU Mailman's page for GSoD'19 thoroughly and am interested in working on improving the Developers' Documentation for Postorius and Hyperkitty. I also went through the responsibilities mentioned by Steve and have few doubts. 1) Is there any user guide/support page on how to use the mailing list explaining all the features of Postorius and Hyperkitty? For example, how to manage subscription, how to manage lists. what does activity summary means, what does the graph represents, what do the different roles represent, what is the difference between an owner, a moderator and a member. Being new to mailing list, I feel that people may face these issues and having a proper documentation on how to properly utilize the platform will be a great win. 2) During my GSoC days, I failed several issues while setting up the project locally on my machine. It became very difficult to test everything from end to end. And I feel that there should be documentation on how to test the complete application from end to end. For example, I faced difficulty in configuring Mailman to Hyperkitty or how to inject a mail to a thread in Mailman3 and had to go through many discussions to get it running. It took many days to get everything running on the web interface. I feel that we should go through the mail archives of last few years GSoC season and should work on those areas where most of the developers felt difficulty. Let me know your inputs. Thanks, Aditi ᐧ

3 3

Creation of blog posts documenting various valuable experiences during GSoC.
by Aaryan Bhagat 03 Jun '19

03 Jun '19

Hello everyone, I am a fellow GSoC contributor here and as part of my process to write blog posts. I have written 2 blog posts until now in my blog[1]. Since not much has been started for the organization's work, I have mostly focused on the GSoC period, what GSoC is, the how-tos and the tips for getting accepted. The comments part I am working right now. If it is not fixed by the time you see the post, please critique the post here ( but not too much as I do not want to spam this mailing list ). I will be writing further posts regarding my involvement in this organization and how I plan to subsequently execute my proposal. [1]: https://berserker1.github.io/

1 0

Related to Google Season of Docs'19
by saurabh singh 01 Jun '19

01 Jun '19

Hi, My name is Saurabh Singh, a Computer Science undergraduate. I am very much interested in contributing to GNU- Mailman for the GSoD'19. I am currently going through the organisation GSoD page and documentation page and will start drafting my proposal soon. Thank You Regards Saurabh Singh Gautam

2 1

Google Season of Docs 2019 Technical Writer
by Ali İlteriş Keskin 01 Jun '19

01 Jun '19

Hi, i'm Ali İlteriş Keskin. I'm developer and student from Turkey. I have been using GNU/Linux for more than 4 years. I write Python, Django, Flask since 2016. I want to work with you in Google Docs Season 2019. I would be very happy if you accept me. Good work. Ali İlteriş Keskin

2 1