Mailman 3 May 1999 - Mailman-Users

Disabling passwords altogether.
by Joseph Leaver Aug. 17, 1999

Aug. 17, 1999

Hi! I run a joke-a-day list and have received several complaints about the need to use passwords to subscribe and unsubscribe. Is there any way to disable this feature? Thanks, Joe

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Using a private web server for mailman
by Lyndon Drake June 13, 1999

June 13, 1999

Hi, I have just finished setting up Mailman at a local school, and would like to thank the developers for a very well designed and usable application. The school is limited to a dialup connection to the internet, so even though the mailing list is accessible to people outside the school, they cannot access the web server used to administer the list. I imagine that other places exist where people might want to run Mailman on a server that has limited access (e.g. a company might run Mailman on an internal server that is firewalled from the Internet), so this may be of interest to more people than just us :-). I would like it to be possible for list subscribers (or users) to manage their account via email (I realise that there would be little appeal in doing this for admins). There would appear to be a couple of things that users can do via the web interface that cannot be done via email, in particular requesting a password mailing. Is it at all likely that the email commands will be extended to accomodate more functionality by email? Thanks, Lyndon

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run_queue just hangs...
by Dave Cinege May 31, 1999

May 31, 1999

Mail man seems to be running OK now, but 'run_queue' does nothing but hang eveytime cron runs it. I woke up this morning a 'ps' tree full of them. I can't find and error's directly and if I run it as the mailman user (list) it does nothing. The most I can get is this when I Ctrl-C out. Traceback (innermost last): File "/usr/lib/mailman/cron/run_queue", line 31, in ? OutgoingQueue.processQueue() File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/OutgoingQueue.py", line 88, in processQueue lock_file.lock() File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/flock.py", line 182, in lock time.sleep(self.sleep_interval) KeyboardInterrupt Eh? It's sleeping on a lock file?? -- http://www.linuxrouter.org/ Linux Router Project Over 750,000 people are now in jail for consensual 'crimes'. 2 million more are now on parole or probation. 4 million more will be arrested this year. Would someone please remind how 'free' America is again?

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Re: Mailman, Exim, and Debian (recipient rejected)
by Dave Cinege May 31, 1999

May 31, 1999

Opps...almost forgot. Exim also needs: 'localhost' (127.0.0.1) added to 'sender_host_accept_relay' or it will not deliver to remote addresses. -- http://www.linuxrouter.org/ Linux Router Project "Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could." William F. Buckley, Jr

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Mailman, Exim, and Debian (recipient rejected)
by Dave Cinege May 30, 1999

May 30, 1999

I had the pleasure of spending 2 hours getting mailman to work. : P I didn't find anything in the archives on my specific problem, so I'm posting the fix. Package: exim Version: 2.05-1 Package: mailman Version: 1.0rc1-1 This version does not include the INSTALL file. : O If your exim is setup with good relay controls (aka CORRECTLY!) all resends will get rejected with the error: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1999-05-31 00:07:13 unqualified recipient rejected: <root> H=localhost (schizo.psychosis.com) [127.0.0.1] (list) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- You must edit /etc/mailman/mm_cfg.py (/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/) and set USE_ENVELOPE_SENDER = 1. In /etc/exim.conf add this below 'system_aliases:' mailman_aliases: driver = aliasfile; file = /etc/exim.aliases.mailman, search_type = lsearch user = list The debian package defaults mailman to the user 'list'. With the above you shoudl put mailman aliases in /etc/exim.aliases.mailman -- http://www.linuxrouter.org/ Linux Router Project marshall.us-state.gov - - [26/Apr/1999:09:27:40 -0400] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" 302 211

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problem moving from one machine to another
by Jerry Adlersfluegel May 30, 1999

May 30, 1999

I have been using mm since b6 or so, and it has been great. I had a hardware failure on my server, and decided to retire that machine and move its address and services to another machine with RedHat 6. I have installed rc1 on it with no problems; set up a test list with success in every way (send mail to the list, configure via web interface, etc.). However, I am unable to get my old lists to function (I copied the entire directory tree from the old drive). If I try to go to the admin page for one, I get an "Internal Server Error" and mail sent to it dies and goes to the postmaster: Subject: Postmaster notify: Service unavailable Parts/Attachments: <snip> The original message was received at Sat, 29 May 1999 22:41:53 -0500 from localhost ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- |"/home/mailman/mail/wrapper mailowner rtctable" (expanded from: rtctable-admin) ----- Transcript of session follows ----- sh: wrapper not available for sendmail programs 554 |"/home/mailman/mail/wrapper mailowner rtctable"... Service unavailable And in the maillog, I get this sort of thing: May 30 22:12:01 jerrya sendmail[1257]: WAA01257: from=<mailman-owner@jerrya>, size=1401, class=-60, pri=139401, nrcpts=1, msgid=<199905310312.WAA01257(a)jerrya.fastrans.net>, proto=ESMTP, relay=localhost [127.0.0.1] May 30 22:12:01 jerrya sendmail[1258]: WAA01257: to=<jerrya>, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, stat=Sent May 30 22:21:14 jerrya sendmail[1338]: WAA01338: from=<jerrya(a)jerrya.fastrans.net>, size=326, class=0, pri=30326, nrcpts=1, msgid=<Pine.LNX.4.10.9905302221020.774-100000(a)jerrya.fastrans.net>, proto=ESMTP, relay=jerrya@localhost May 30 22:21:14 jerrya sendmail[1339]: WAA01339: clone WAA01338, owner=rtctable-admin May 30 22:21:19 jerrya sendmail[1339]: WAA01339: SYSERR(jerrya): mailer prog died with signal 13 May 30 22:21:19 jerrya sendmail[1339]: WAA01339: to=|"/home/mailman/mail/wrapper post rtctable", delay=00:00:05, xdelay=00:00:04, mailer=prog, stat=Deferred Now, I am able to send mail to my new test list, and I have the link in /etc/smrsh/ to the wrapper. File and directory permissions all look identical between the old lists and the test list. I can't figure out what I'm missing here. HELP!! :-) Thanks! -- Jerry Adlersfluegel

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bounce to moderator patch
by Rupa Schomaker (list) May 30, 1999

May 30, 1999

This is a very small patch but it does allow the moderator to bounce a submission to himself. The message is sent unchanged... This patch is against rc10. You'll probably have to use a -p2 or -p3 with patch (or just experiment). It is a very very small patch so you could even do it by hand. :) -- Rupa (rupa(a)rupa.com for normal email) Please don't email duplicate replies.

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Starting with Mailman
by Harmony Major May 30, 1999

May 30, 1999

Hi, I was wondering if anyone can tell me what in the world to do with Mailman once it's downloaded on my PC? I don't know how to install it, and I don't know Python. I read the previous "install" posts, text files in the program, and everything else I thought would be helpful, but to no avail. Can anyone tell me what to do next? Shouldn't I just be able to run the program now? Thanks. : ) Best Wishes, Harmony Major ~*~ Is Your Home Business Right For YOU? ~*~ Test yourself with this FREE instant report: mailto:goodbizchoice@getresponse.com?subject=Test_Myself! ~*~ Free Weekly Business Tips & Free Books! ~*~ Learn how to start & maintain a profitable home business on the Internet -- The next 25 subscribers get 3 FREE BOOKS! http://homebasedheaven.cjb.net/subscribe.html?sig ~*~ Home-Based Heaven ~*~ Your Award-Winning One-Stop Shop for All Your Home Business Needs. Home jobs, website promotion, small business help, free books, and more! http://homebasedheaven.cjb.net/index1.html?sig

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Re: [Mailman-Developers] stalled connection: archive locks?
by Harald Meland May 29, 1999

May 29, 1999

[Ricardo Kustner] > Hi, > > well i've traced my problem back to the fact that the > lock files in the archive directory are not being removed. > > they appear as: > 1999-May-subject.lock.<host-name>.<#####> > > where <#####> is a number... The number is the process ID (pid) of the locking process. If you do a "ps auxww | grep #####" (substituting "#####" with a number from a lock file), does any Mailman processes show up? > does anybody have the same problems? > > i think this might be what causes the process-overload on our server, when > an impatient moderator doesnt wait for the stalled page to completely finnish > and approve several posts at once, all of them waiting for lock files to be > released...? I'll look into it -- this may be related to a problem J C Lawrence has reported (with subject "Performance under load (bursty message flow)"). -- Harald

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Re: [Mailman-Users] Errors with > 1000 members.
by Harald Meland May 28, 1999

May 28, 1999

[Clark Evans] > As I was adding users to a list (probably around a thousand?), I got > the error at the bottom. I have experimented somewhat with adding lots of users to Mailman lists, and found that if the mass subscribe process takes to long, the CGI script is killed off by the server (and leaves me with a Netscape popup window saying "Document contained no data"). Apparently, for Apache, the appropriate config option is "Timeout" -- which defaults to 300 (= 5 minutes). If the server kills off the CGI script at a bad time -- in the middle of saving the list config db -- you'll experience problems like you describe. The solution is to replace the list's corrupted config.db with the previous version, called config.db.last. Possible solutions I can think of: * Speeding up the mass subscribe processing: Currently, when adding lots of members from the web interface, the list config db is saved after each addition, and then finally once more at the end. I'm considering changing this so that only the "final" save is done. That would speed up the mass subscription processing considerably -- and thus the CGI will be more likely to finish within "Timeout" -- and also reduce the risk of the script being killed off at a bad time, as only _one_ config save will be performed. However, such a change will also mean that _if_ the CGI is killed off, _none_ of the intended list changes have been saved. * Make sure the CGI script _isn't_ killed: If the Mailman CGI scripts are changed to ignore SIGTERM signals, would the problem go away? I don't know enough about CGI scripting to say for sure, but my guess would be that _some_ server kills off timed-out processes with SIGKILL. And, even if the script isn't killed, the server will still close the connection on timeout -- leaving me with "The document contained no data" popup windows. If anyone have other, better ways of solving this, let me know... -- Harald

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