Mailman 3 August 1999 - Mailman-Users

Email subscription with no confirmation
by Nicholas Brenckle 16 Oct '99

16 Oct '99

At the beginning of each year, we do a massive creation of new accounts for students. (Well, not THAT massive but a few hundred anyway) Currently with PMDF listserv our addstudent script on the unix host that holds the student accounts fires off a "subscribe class-of-2001" message to the list server and the student is added. Mailman has that feature but requires a confirmation of the student before the subscription is added. While most would argue that this is acceptable, Im going to say most students as well as the administrators of those lists will complain to me they want one step adding. Anyway to do this? Perhaps a "subscribe [password] [digest option] [no confirm] address=blah(a)blah.com"? If im sending the list password (admittedly though unsecure email) this should work the same as if I added them via the web interface. -Nick -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Nicholas Brenckle Yale University School of Medicine nicholas.brenckle(a)yale.edu ITS Med - PO Box 208089 203-737-2377 New Haven, CT 06520-8089

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Mailman 1.0 & OpenBSD 2.5 & Python 1.5b2
by Nicholas Brenckle 14 Oct '99

14 Oct '99

I installed the patch as posted by Tor Houghton (mailman-users : 30 March 1999 - http://www.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/1999-March/000941.html ) This didnt work for me. I still receive the error on newlist creation (see below) This is on an OpenBSD 2.5 system and Python 1.5b2. A little more poking and I found the solution was to set the list to 'openbsd2' instead of 'openbsd' in the posixfile.py lib file. Is now: if sys.platform in ('netbsd1', 'freebsd2', 'freebsd3'): Change to: if sys.platform in ('netbsd1', 'freebsd2', 'freebsd3', 'openbsd2'): There are two lines that contain the same thing (checking for netbsd and freebsd) add the 'openbsd2' to each of them. -Nick -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Nicholas Brenckle Yale University School of Medicine nicholas.brenckle(a)yale.edu ITS Med - PO Box 208089 203-737-2377 New Haven, CT 06520-8089 Error Message I was getting before the fix to the posixfile.py: Traceback (innermost last): File "bin/newlist", line 146, in ? raise SystemExit(main(sys.argv)) File "bin/newlist", line 93, in main newlist.Create(list_name, owner_mail, pw) File "/home/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 724, in Create self.Lock() File "/home/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 1379, in Lock self._lock_file.lock('w|', 1) File "/usr/local/lib/python1.5/posixfile.py", line 190, in lock flock = fcntl.fcntl(self._file_.fileno(), cmd, flock) IOError: [Errno 22] Invalid argument

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Exim and mailman - HOWTO
by Nigel Metheringham 06 Sep '99

06 Sep '99

Before I carefully forget this and have to rediscover it when someone asks about it, here is how I am configuring exim to work nicely with mailman. Configs are for exim 3.0x, however these parts of the config have not changed so it should all work for older versions too. It all looks rather longer and more complicated that my previous varient of this for handling smartlist, but thats basically because I found it too hard to use regular expressions and similar to collapse the admin, request and list functions all into one, so there are pretty much replicated sections for each subfunction. BTW when a mailman list is created it "magically" appears as a working list to exim - no aliases, no reconfig and no restarting the daemon. Config file fragments follow:- ## Transports section ## ## Three transports for list mail, request mail and admin mail ## respectively ## Mailman is installed in /home/mailman ## Mailman is configured to be invoked as user exim list_transport: driver = pipe command = "/home/mailman/mail/wrapper post ${lc:$local_part}" current_directory = /home/mailman home_directory = /home/mailman user = exim group = exim list_request_transport: driver = pipe command = "/home/mailman/mail/wrapper mailcmd ${lc:$local_part}" current_directory = /home/mailman home_directory = /home/mailman user = exim group = exim list_admin_transport: driver = pipe command = "/home/mailman/mail/wrapper mailowner ${lc:$local_part}" current_directory = /home/mailman home_directory = /home/mailman user = exim group = exim ### end of transports section fragment ## Directors section [this deals with local addresses] ## ## First 2 directors rewrite list-owner or owner-list to list-admin ## This is only done if the list exists. ## List existence checks are done by seeing if the file ## /home/mailman/lists/<list>/listinfo.html ## exists. list_owner_director: driver = smartuser require_files = /home/mailman/lists/${lc:$local_part}/listinfo.html suffix = "-owner" new_address = "${lc:$local_part}-admin@${domain}" owner_list_director: driver = smartuser require_files = /home/mailman/lists/${lc:$local_part}/listinfo.html prefix = "owner-" new_address = "${lc:$local_part}-admin@${domain}" ## ## Next 3 directors direct admin, request and list mail to the appropriate ## transport. List existence is checked as above. list_admin_director: driver = smartuser suffix = -admin require_files = /home/mailman/lists/${lc:$local_part}/listinfo.html transport = list_admin_transport list_request_director: driver = smartuser suffix = -request require_files = /home/mailman/lists/${lc:$local_part}/listinfo.html transport = list_request_transport list_director: driver = smartuser require_files = /home/mailman/lists/${lc:$local_part}/listinfo.html transport = list_transport ## End of directors fragment ## End of config files bits Basically thats everything. Exim should be configured to allow reasonable volume - ie no setting max_recipients down to a silly value, and with normal degrees of security - ie allowing relaying from 127.0.0.1 (thats vital), but pretty much nothing else. Parallel deliveries and other tweaks can also be used. Delay warning messages should be switched off or configured to only happen for non-list mail - unless you like receiving tons of mail when a host is down. Problems:- - Mailman's detection of exim bounces needs improving - it really should make use of the extra header information that exim provides. It also should recognise and deal with or ignore delay warning messages. - List existence is checked on whether there is a listinfo.html file for a list. If you delete lists by foul means, be aware of this. Mailman config is very simple - you just need to make sure that the user in the transport configuration stanzas (exim in this case) is used as the mail user when configuring mailman, and that its installed in the right place. Hope this stuff helps, and it would be nice if it could be integrated into the exim and/or mailman FAQs. Nigel. -- [ Nigel Metheringham Nigel.Metheringham(a)VData.co.uk ] [ Phone: +44 1423 850000 Fax +44 1423 858866 ]

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problem with arch converting majordomo archives to mailman
by Todd Pfaff 05 Sep '99

05 Sep '99

i'm using mailman 1.0 and the ~mailman/bin/arch program to convert my majordomo mbox format archives to mailman pipermail archives. most of the majordomo archives were converted fine, but a small percentage fail to convert, with the following output from the arch python program: figuring article archives 1999-June Processing article #2 into archives ['1999-June'] Updating index files for archive [1999-June] Date Subject Author Thread Computing threaded index Traceback (innermost last): File "/home/mailman/bin/arch", line 47, in ? archiver.close() File "/home/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/HyperArch.py", line 906, in close self.update_dirty_archives()# Update all changed archives File "/home/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/HyperArch.py", line 871, in update_dirty_archives self.update_archive(i) File "/home/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/pipermail.py", line 330, in update_archive self.write_index_header() File "/home/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/HyperArch.py", line 738, in write_index_header self.updateThreadedIndex() File "/home/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/pipermail.py", line 269, in updateThreadedIndex self.database.setThreadKey(self.archive, article.threadKey+'\000'+article.msgid, msgid) File "/home/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/HyperDatabase.py", line 256, in setThreadKey self.threadIndex[key]=msgid File "/home/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/HyperDatabase.py", line 144, in __setitem__ self.current_index = self.sorted.index(current_item) ValueError: list.index(x): x not in list i realize that this may not be enough information for anyone to diagnose the problem, but i'm hoping someone may already have encountered this problem and knows how to fix it or workaround it. if you need more information, such as the majordomo archive files i'm trying to convert, let me know. -- Todd Pfaff \ Email: pfaff(a)mcmaster.ca Computing and Information Services \ Voice: (905) 525-9140 x22920 ABB 132 \ FAX: (905) 528-3773 McMaster University \ Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M1 \

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mailman aliases
by Todd Pfaff 03 Sep '99

03 Sep '99

Wow! I'm impressed. Once past the initial hurdle of the vsnprintf problem and Solaris 2.5, I had mailman installed and working in less that an hour. Beautiful! In case this hasn't been discussed already, I have a suggestion for handling the mailman aliases. The INSTALL file says: - Add aliases for `mailman' and `owner-mailman' to the system's mail alias database. These aliases should point to whoever is ultimately responsible for the Mailman installation. Here are instructions for those running sendmail: 1. su to root. 2. Assuming your email is fred(a)flintstone.com, add the following lines to the file /etc/aliases: mailman: fred(a)flintstone.com mailman-owner: mailman 3. Some versions of sendmail require you to run the program 'newaliases' explicitly. I did this a little differently: 1) add to /etc/mail/sendmail.cf O AliasFile=/home/mailman/aliases 2) create the /home/mailman/aliases dbm files cd /home/mailman - edit aliases and add mailman and mailman-owner alias entries as above touch aliases.dir aliases.pag chown root aliases* chgrp mailman aliases* 3) run newaliases and restart sendmail When adding a new list: /home/mailman/bin/newlist list-name list-admin-address admin-password 1 >> /home/mailman/aliases then you just have to edit the aliases file to remove the extra junk output by newlist (but this could be suppressed when the immediate flag is used) and run newaliases. -- Todd Pfaff \ Email: pfaff(a)mcmaster.ca Computing and Information Services \ Voice: (905) 525-9140 x22920 ABB 132 \ FAX: (905) 528-3773 McMaster University \ Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M1 \

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qmail install docs wrong
by Christopher Kolar 03 Sep '99

03 Sep '99

FYI: I just did my first-ever installation of qmail and noticed a problem in the mailman docs. Installing v1.0 the directions given in INSTALL.QMAIL for the changes to the inetd.conf and hosts.allow are incorrect. The settings in this file did not work, and when I looked in the doc/FAQ in section 5.4 I noticed that the instructions are different. The settings in the FAQ did manage to get things working the way that the should -- it looks like just a couple of changes in syntax, but it would probably be a good idea to change the INSTALL.QMAIL doc. Cheers, --chris

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Re: [Mailman-Users] Mailman does not generate a high load on my machine
by J C Lawrence 01 Sep '99

01 Sep '99

On Tue, 31 Aug 99 17:51:48 -0500 Frank Martini <fmartini(a)caddev.com> wrote: > i've got a stupid question.. how can I tell which version of the > kernal I'm running.... $ uname -a -- J C Lawrence Life: http://www.kanga.nu/ Home: claw(a)kanga.nu ---------(*) Work (Linux/IA64): claw(a)varesearch.com ... Beware of cromagnons wearing chewing gum and palm pilots ...

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Mailman does not generate a high load on my machine
by Fabricio Chalub 01 Sep '99

01 Sep '99

Hello, I send a e-mail a while ago saying mailman was causing a huge load on my server. That's not correct. I found out that it was a problem in the 2.2.11 version of the linux kernel. I'm with 2.2.12 now and its ok. Sorry for the mess. fc -- riverrun.com.br / actech.com.br

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Re: [Mailman-Users] Mailman does not generate a high load on my machine
by Frank Martini 01 Sep '99

01 Sep '99

i've got a stupid question.. how can I tell which version of the kernal I'm running.... Frank >Hello, > >I send a e-mail a while ago saying mailman was causing a huge load on my >server. That's not correct. I found out that it was a problem in the >2.2.11 version of the linux kernel. I'm with 2.2.12 now and its ok. > >Sorry for the mess. > > fc > >-- >riverrun.com.br / actech.com.br > > >------------------------------------------------------ >Mailman-Users maillist - Mailman-Users(a)python.org >http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Frank Martini Voice: 713/621-1917 Cadence Development FAX: 713/621-1960 5075 Westheimer, Ste. 1266 eMail: fmartini(a)caddev.com Houston, Texas 77056 WWW: http://www.caddev.com/ Macintosh & Windows Client/Server Database Development

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Mailman does not generate a high load on my machine
by Fabricio Chalub 01 Sep '99

01 Sep '99

Hello, I send a e-mail a while ago saying mailman was causing a huge load on my server. That's not correct. I found out that it was a problem in the 2.2.11 version of the linux kernel. I'm with 2.2.12 now and its ok. Sorry for the mess. fc

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Mailman-Users August 1999