Mailman 3 September 1999 - Mailman-Users

Deleting an archive...
by Richard Ames Sept. 7, 1999

Sept. 7, 1999

Hi - One of my list members posted a message with his computer date in 2000... This resulted in an archive for that month in 2000. I have successfully deleted the message and the archive of it. I can edit the HTML to make the archive index not show the month... but something is re-creating it. How can I permanently delete the fact that this message existed??? Thanks, Richard. Richard Ames linsup.com, Sydney, Australia Tel: +61 2 9144-6131, Fax: +61 2 9144-6138 mailto:richard@linsup.com http://www.linsup.com

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Archive Searching
by Grace, Terry Sept. 6, 1999

Sept. 6, 1999

I'm using htDig to index my list archives. Works great for the publicly accessible archives but since it locates documents via spidering, the only way to index the private archives is to turn them into public archives. My thought to get around this is on the private archives is to have htDig replace /pipermail/ with /mailman/private/ in the url. Easily done but in order for it to work via a script I need to have a method of turning the list public while it's indexing and then back to private … [View More]

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Exim and mailman - HOWTO
by Nigel Metheringham Sept. 6, 1999

Sept. 6, 1999

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, … [View More]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 ] [View Less]

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problem with arch converting majordomo archives to mailman
by Todd Pfaff Sept. 5, 1999

Sept. 5, 1999

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):… [View More]

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Where are these variables stored?
by Andreas Gietl Sept. 5, 1999

Sept. 5, 1999

Hi everybody, i'm trying to work around the not-really-existend virtual host support of mailman. In this case I need to know where the following variables for EACH LIST are stored. I don't need to know where to change them within webinterface. I need an interactive way or the information where i can change these variables within a configuration file. These are the variables: Host name this list prefers. Base URL for Mailman web interface thank you for your help andreas gietl -- andreas … [View More]

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E-mail address in archive document header
by Grace, Terry Sept. 5, 1999

Sept. 5, 1999

Is there any way to prevent a list members e-mail address from appearing in the headers of documents that are archived? My list members are very spam consious and with the recent addition of a search engine their addresses are appearing in the some of the search abstracts. Along the same lines, I have private archives indexed and searchable (thanks for the tip Igor) so have a couple of other questions: How can I put a link to the search page on all the archive pages? When the users selects … [View More]

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Netscape Messenger
by Patrick Wheeler Sept. 5, 1999

Sept. 5, 1999

Has anyone successfully set up mailman on a machine running netscape messenger? If so, comments on how it was done, particularly the aliases for program delivery. Patrick Wheeler

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Re: [Mailman-Users] problem with arch converting majordomo archives to mailman
by Ron Jarrell Sept. 4, 1999

Sept. 4, 1999

>From: "Barry A. Warsaw" <bwarsaw(a)cnri.reston.va.us> >>>>>> "RJ" == Ron Jarrell <jarrell(a)vt.edu> writes: > RJ> FYI, I ran into the same problem this weekend.. 14M archive > RJ> with about 9000 messages in it, and it always blows up in the > RJ> same month; even if I peel out just that month. Haven't had > RJ> the energy to search down to which message(s) might be causing > RJ> it. >Sorry it's taken me so … [View More]

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Several problems, including Membership Management page
by Listwrangler Sept. 3, 1999

Sept. 3, 1999

Hello again. To refresh your memory, I am a volunteer with a non-profit organization who serves as their IT expert. (Please don't laugh. I truly am the most technoliterate person they have!) I administer several Mailman lists on behalf of the organization. I am not a programmer and I have no access to the machine running Mailman. The current installation is Mailman 1.0. I have no idea what it's running on because it belongs to the ISP. I was set to receive digested mail, but it's been hours … [View More]and nothing has come through, so I've switched to regular mode. So, if anybody has posted to the list in response to my previous postings, I haven't seen it yet, not having gotten a digest yet. Hopefully things will speed up now that I've opted for regular mail. Problem #1, which I posted earlier: Some user passwords are not working. I spelunked the archives and found out that apparently the reason why some of my users' passwords are failing is because they mix up and lower case letters. According to the post I found in the archives the fix is to upgrade to the latest version of Mailman. I sent this information to my ISP. The director of operations has informed me, "I am running the latest version." Can anybody tell me what the latest version of Mailman is? They are running 1.0, as far as I can tell. As I said, I don't know anything about their Mailman installation. All I got was a tersely worded 'Your new mailing list' message. This message doesn't even tell me what kind of software it is or what version. It doesn't identify who made the software, or how to reach them. It doesn't say where to go for help learning more about the software. If it's supposed to generate some sort of help file, or send me and URL to find online help, it didn't. Bug or feature? Problem #2, The Membership Management console crashes my computer. Whenever I go to the Membership Management console in the admin web pages, it loads, then freezes. Nothing works. Total screen freeze. I have to turn off the machine and reboot. I've done this several times this evening and I'm getting a little testy. I don't have this problem with any of the other admin or info pages. Needlesstosay, I don't have this problem when viewing non-Mailman web pages. I have graphics turned off. (And I'm not turning them on; 99.9% of graphics are content-free and just eat up bandwidth.) I have cookies set to accept cookies that are sent back to self. Java is turned on. My browser is Netscape 4.0 on a PowerMac 6100 running MacOs 7.5.3. Side note to #2. It would be useful if there was a 'delete' button in the management console so that I could unsubscribe half a dozen people just by checking them off, then hitting submit. It is a royal pain in my ....neck.... to have to manually unsubscribe fifteen or twenty people one by one via the web interface. Strongly recommended side note to #2. It would be better still if there was a place where I could dump a whole batch of subscribe/unsubscribe requests and do them all at once, instead of having to cherry pick through the thirty odd screens of my 1000+ user list. The thing I really REALLY like about Majordomo is that I could simply email a slew of subscribe/unsubscribes in one message and have done with it. No web interface needed. Soapbox time: It seems strange to me that Administrators are deprived of a really efficient and effective way to administer email lists. It's just so much faster to pop off an email than to wade through a web site to perform administrivia like un/subs. Yes, when I don't know what a command does or the syntax, then the web site is a great fall back that coaches me through it. I found most (but not all) of the help files associated with the web pages helpful. But now that I know, I just wanna do it, not read about it. End soapbox. I have some other questions and queries, but that seems like enough for one email. As always, I'd appreciate pointers to sources of more information where I can get help learning how to use and troubleshoot Mailman. (Right now I'm feeling rather nostalgic for Majordomo.) Thanks in advance for any help. Listwrangler Listwrangler listwrangler(a)iximd.com ******************** For help with subscribe/unsubscribe, troubleshooting, or more info about The American Boyz email lists, please visit: ________ (new web page being developed, please stand by), or request a copy of the Amboyz Elist Help File to be emailed to you. If you are familiar with Mailman, the following lists are implemented with Mailman and use standard Mailman features: Amboyz-Main, Amboyz-Announce, TrueSpirit, and ElderTG [View Less]

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Default /mailman/listinfo
by Christiaan Keet Sept. 3, 1999

Sept. 3, 1999

I notice it isn't possible to change the default text at .../mailman/listinfo/ and .../mailman/admin/ without without doing it in the python source. I presume this is because the authors want to keep links etc to the mailman pages in there, which is fair enough. How about having an option to put your own header and footer to that page though so that you can at least customise it to fit in with the look of the rest of the website? - Christiaan

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