Mailman 3 November 2001 - Mailman-Users

mailman 2.0.6 feature questions
by vjl＠www.seweb.uci.edu Nov. 1, 2001

Nov. 1, 2001

Hi all, I'm a longtime Smartlist admin who's migrating to Mailman 2.0.6 and I've got a few questions regarding features: I have several legitimate 'non-opt-out' type of lists; Ie: our department wants to make sure that *every* faculty member is given a certain message, so we use a smartlist mailing list. I've configured it so that users can not unsubscribe from that list - they have to contact us directly [and we only unsub someone if they are quitting]. Is there a way to do this in Mailman? Also, seeing as someone may want to get around that by putting themselves on permanent vacation, is there any way to disable that feature as well? Is there any way to have a reduced-feature admin w3 page? Ie: I'd like to give a non-tech person the ability to add/delete users, but nothing more. I don't want them to change the site URL, name of the list, etc, etc. Is there a way to either globally or on a per-list basis, customize some of the auto-reply text? I notice you can prepend some text to some of the auto-replies, but how 'bout replacing the entire auto-reply message itself? Although I've not gone into production w/ Mailman yet, I have to say I'm very impressed with its featureset. I think I'm going to have to make some room in my schedule to help out with its development [there's nothing like a nice, long wishlist to inspire me]. My python, though is rusty and old [last version i used was 1.3 in '98: http://www.python.org/psa/Users.html] I'm actually looking forward to creating some PHP classes that might make for a more easily customized UI. Any tips y'all might have would be most appreciated. /vjl/

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Re: [Mailman-Users] why can't people see my lists?
by J C Lawrence Nov. 1, 2001

Nov. 1, 2001

On Thu, 01 Nov 2001 19:04:48 -0500 David Pierron <linux(a)wombatsweb.com> wrote: > Since we're on this subject of the generated mailing list page, > this is the only place where I seem to have had an error in > installing this package ... The mail-owner(a)domain.com email > address last listed on this page has the domain name of the person > who set up the RPM ... I have checked config files and don't see > where I could change this ... Can someone please point me in the > right direction? MAILMAN_OWNER in mm_cfg.py -- J C Lawrence ---------(*) Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. claw(a)kanga.nu He lived as a devil, eh? http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/ Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.

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Re: [Mailman-Users] why can't people see my lists?
by J C Lawrence Nov. 1, 2001

Nov. 1, 2001

On Fri, 2 Nov 2001 10:23:42 +1100 Vania Lolham <vania(a)computergeneration.com.au> wrote: > The only way public can find your mailing list is by: 1- Placing > it in your web site 2- Advertise it on other public newsgroups 3- > Mail the URL to all of your clients > http://www.<host>/mailman/listinfo/ will reveal nothing False. > Unless you edit the "~/mailman/Mailman/Cgi/listinfo.py " file and > add your lists URL dodgy but it will work. Better option is to > put the list on your web site with full link like this > http://www.<host>/mailman/listinfo/doc > http://www.<host>/mailman/listinfo/examples > http://www.<host>/mailman/listinfo/programming and so on Example: https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/ (Yeah, its "lists" instead of "mailman" -- its just a custom Apache conf, nothing more). More traditional example: http://lists.svlug.org/lists/listinfo/ There no custom editing of files required or done in either case. The list of lists is dynamically generated. Please don't spread FUD. -- J C Lawrence ---------(*) Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. claw(a)kanga.nu He lived as a devil, eh? http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/ Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.

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Re: [Mailman-Users] why can't people see my lists?
by J C Lawrence Nov. 1, 2001

Nov. 1, 2001

On Thu, 1 Nov 2001 15:27:33 -0800 john <jgo> wrote: >> Jon Carnes wrote: >>> 2001-10-31 10:17:00 -0800 J C Lawrence <claw(a)2wire.com> wrote: >>>> Wed, 2001-10-31 11:31:24 -0500 Joshua S Freeman >>>> <jfreeman(a)connix.com> wrote: >>> Check and correct the value of "Base URL for Mailman web >>> interface" for each list. It is currently set to something >>> other than, "http://www.mysql.org/mailman/". > Is this the web_page_url = 'whateverURL' that you can see by doing > a bin/config_list -o showmefile listname and then looking in the > showmefile? This is the last option on the first admin page for each list. It is no more complex than that, tho you can make it considerably more complex than that if you really wish. > If he were to set it thus: web_page_url = > 'http://www.mysql.org/mailman/fred/george/ (assuming he has > sub-directories in ~mailman of fred and fred/george) then is there > anything that would prevent that from working as well? Yes. Short story: mailman works by parsing PATH_INFO. Long story: If you don't understand the short story, don't mess with it, and if you do understand the short story, you don't need the long story. The other version is that if you want to mess with the URL path in interesting manners you are going to have to use mod_rewrite. -- J C Lawrence ---------(*) Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. claw(a)kanga.nu He lived as a devil, eh? http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/ Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.

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qrunner keeps locking cron
by Greg Schnippel Nov. 1, 2001

Nov. 1, 2001

I've been having a lot of trouble with mailman and cron recently and I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this or has any ideas..? We have several large lists on our server and they have run without problem for a couple of years now. However, recently it seems that qrunner is locking up when it tries to process the queue and in the process, it stalls the cron daemon as well. The only thing we have been able to do is monitor cron, detect when its not working, kill and restart the cron process, and then manually run the mailman qrunner program. Definitely not optimal. There are no errors being reported in either the mailman error logs or in the smtp logs.. ?? Anyone had any problems with qrunner or cron with mailman? Thanks, Greg Schnippel

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Re: [Mailman-Users] why can't people see my lists?
by jgo Nov. 1, 2001

Nov. 1, 2001

> Jon Carnes wrote: >> 2001-10-31 10:17:00 -0800 J C Lawrence <claw(a)2wire.com> wrote: >>> Wed, 2001-10-31 11:31:24 -0500 Joshua S Freeman <jfreeman(a)connix.com> >>>wrote: > the assumtion that the lists will be found off the home > directory in "lists/". >>> http://www.mysql.org/mailman/listinfo/ I have four lists running >>> and. for each of them, in the Privacy Options page I have >>> "Advertise this list when people ask what lists are on the >>> machine?" set to "Yes". Isn't that where I set this feature? >> Check and correct the value of "Base URL for Mailman web interface" >> for each list. It is currently set to something other than, >> "http://www.mysql.org/mailman/". Is this the web_page_url = 'whateverURL' that you can see by doing a bin/config_list -o showmefile listname and then looking in the showmefile? Because, when I try to use that URL or a URL derived from it, as Joshua mentioned, above, I just get "Not Found". And the 2 "listinfo" files I find find ~mailman -name listinfo -print are non-text files in the bin/cgi-bin and src directories. If he were to set it thus: web_page_url = 'http://www.mysql.org/mailman/fred/george/ (assuming he has sub-directories in ~mailman of fred and fred/george) then is there anything that would prevent that from working as well? Is there something more to mapping the URL to the locations of the files? At what step of the installation process does this get established? (Is it when one runs ./configure or when one runs make install ?) They seem to be controlled by the --prefix= and --with-var-prefix= and --exec-prefix= options, so where it looks would need to be governed by those, wouldn't they? John G. Otto, Eagle Scout, Knight, Cybernetic Praxeologist Existence, Consciousness, Identity, Life, Liberty, Property, Privacy, Justice

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why can't people see my lists?
by Joshua S. Freeman Nov. 1, 2001

Nov. 1, 2001

http://www.mysql.org/mailman/listinfo/ I have four lists running and. for each of them, in the Privacy Options page I have "Advertise this list when people ask what lists are on the machine?" set to "Yes". Isn't that where I set this feature? TIA, J. (p.s.- i've shutdown and restarted, refreshed, etc.. my browser repeatedly but still no lists are showing up.) thanks again... J. -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- Joshua S. Freeman | preferred email: jfreeman(a)connix.com pgp public key: finger jfreeman(a)connix.com http://www.threeofus.com -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

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Re: [Mailman-Users] Long delay before delivering
by J C Lawrence Nov. 1, 2001

Nov. 1, 2001

On Wed, 31 Oct 2001 23:40:48 +0100 Edwin Ringersma <edwin(a)introweb.nl> wrote: > Minutes. Can take 20 minutes. Sounds like a poor MTA configuration. It could also be the old pipermail performance problem, much improved in 2.0.5 and improved yet again in 2.0.6, and hopefully fixed in 2.1. > I've noticed qrunner hanging and using cpu-cycles. Killing it, and > removing lockfiles put the mails that where waiting through > immediately (when qrunner was called by crontab). I guess > qrunners hanging is the problem. What causes this I don't know. Sounds like the archiver/pipermail problem. -- J C Lawrence ---------(*) Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. claw(a)kanga.nu He lived as a devil, eh? http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/ Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.

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Re: [Mailman-Users] Mass "un"-subscription
by jgo Nov. 1, 2001

Nov. 1, 2001

> "Camille K. Powell" <cpowell(a)asciences.com> Wed, 2001-10-31 13:05:51 -0500 > Is there a way to do a mass unsubscription or would > I have to individually unsubscribe each user? .../bin/remove_members John G. Otto, Eagle Scout, Knight, Cybernetic Praxeologist Existence, Consciousness, Identity, Life, Liberty, Property, Privacy, Justice

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Mailman wrapper not sending out mail
by Michelle Brownsworth Nov. 1, 2001

Nov. 1, 2001

Gentle friends, I installed Mailman 2.0.6 on my FreeBSD 4.4-RELEASE server, which runs sendmail 8.11.6. I configured in accordance with the INSTALL instructions. I used the Apache group nobody (GID 65534) for the CGI wrapper. Initially, it seemed logical to use GID 6 for the mail wrapper, according to /etc/group: mail:*:6: Here are the results of the first configure: /usr/local/src/mailman-2.0.6# ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mailman \ > --with-mail-gid=6 \ > --with-cgi-gid=65534 loading cache ./config.cache checking for --with-python... no checking for python... (cached) /usr/local/bin/python checking Python interpreter... /usr/local/bin/python checking Python version... 1.5.2 checking for a BSD compatible install... (cached) /usr/bin/install -c checking whether make sets ${MAKE}... (cached) yes checking for true... (cached) /usr/bin/true checking for --without-gcc... no checking for gcc... (cached) gcc checking whether the C compiler (gcc ) works... yes checking whether the C compiler (gcc ) is a cross-compiler... no checking whether we are using GNU C... (cached) yes checking whether gcc accepts -g... (cached) yes checking whether #! works in shell scripts... (cached) yes checking for --with-var-prefix... no checking for --with-username... mailman checking for mailman UID... 1003 checking for --with-groupname... mailman checking for mailman GID... 1003 checking permissions on /usr/local/mailman... okay checking for mail wrapper GID... 6 checking for CGI wrapper GID... 65534 checking for CGI extensions... no checking for default fully qualified host name... straylight.primelogic.com checking for default URL host component... straylight.primelogic.com checking for strerror... (cached) yes checking for setregid... (cached) yes checking for syslog... (cached) yes checking how to run the C preprocessor... (cached) gcc -E checking for ANSI C header files... (cached) yes checking for syslog.h... (cached) yes checking for uid_t in sys/types.h... (cached) yes checking type of array argument to getgroups... (cached) gid_t checking for vsnprintf... (cached) yes updating cache ./config.cache creating ./config.status creating misc/paths.py creating Mailman/Defaults.py creating Mailman/mm_cfg.py.dist creating src/Makefile creating misc/Makefile creating bin/Makefile creating Mailman/Makefile creating Mailman/Cgi/Makefile creating Mailman/Logging/Makefile creating Mailman/Archiver/Makefile creating Mailman/pythonlib/Makefile creating Mailman/Handlers/Makefile creating Mailman/Bouncers/Makefile creating templates/Makefile creating cron/Makefile creating filters/Makefile creating scripts/Makefile creating cron/crontab.in creating Makefile You have new mail in /var/mail/michelle So far, so good. Then I compiled: make DIRSETGID=: install Because, according to README.BSD: BSD ISSUES 1. Vivek Khera writes that BSD does nightly security scans for setuid file changes. Setgid directories also come up on the scan when they change. He says that setgid bit is not necessary on BSD systems because group ownership is automatically inherited on files created in directories. On other Un*xes, this only happens when the directory has the setgid bit turned on. To install without turning on the setgid bit on directories, simply pass in the DIRSETGID variable to make, like so: % make DIRSETGID=: install This turns off the chmod g+s on each directory as they are installed. Next, I checked directory permissions, and they were copacetic: /usr/local/mailman# bin/check_perms No problems found Then I set up a list, using bin/newlist. The Web pages for the list worked fine, no problems. Next, I tried to send a message to Mailman, which quickly went down in flames. Turned out my assumption of mail (GID 6) for the mail wrapper was unwarranted: Oct 31 22:46:38 straylight sendmail[63442]: fA16kcf63442: from=<michelle(a)eugene.net>, size=332, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<a05001917b8069f6b5432(a)[192.168.1.1]>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=c886028-a.eugene1.or.home.com [24.14.231.140] Oct 31 22:46:39 straylight Mailman mail-wrapper: Failure to exec script. WANTED gid 6, GOT gid 1. (Reconfigure to take 1?) Oct 31 22:46:39 straylight sendmail[63443]: fA16kcf63442: to="|/usr/local/mailman/mail/wrapper post songscape", ctladdr=<songscape(a)straylight.primelogic.com> (1/0), delay=00:00:01, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=prog, pri=30032, dsn=5.3.0, stat=unknown mailer error 2 Oct 31 22:46:39 straylight sendmail[63443]: fA16kcf63442: fA16kdf63443: DSN: unknown mailer error 2 Oct 31 22:46:44 straylight sendmail[63443]: fA16kdf63443: to=<michelle(a)eugene.net>, delay=00:00:05, xdelay=00:00:05, mailer=esmtp, pri=30132, relay=mail.eugene.net. [207.189.137.3], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (fA16pCf10466 Message accepted for delivery) DOH! Okay, sez I. Undaunted, I reconfigured using "--with-mail-gid=1," which /etc/group shows as: daemon:*:1:daemon A second test message was sent. Reconfiguring with daemon (GID 1) took care of the error message, but now Mailman won't respond to e-mail. A message sent to the list (or to [list-request] seems to be handed off to mail/wrapper correctly: Oct 31 22:24:17 straylight sendmail[60410]: fA16OFf60410: from=<michelle(a)eugene.net>, size=332, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<a05001916b80699e20711(a)[192.168.1.1]>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=c886028-a.eugene1.or.home.com [24.14.231.140] Oct 31 22:24:18 straylight sendmail[60411]: fA16OFf60410: to="|/usr/local/mailman/mail/wrapper post songscape", ctladdr=<songscape(a)straylight.primelogic.com> (1/0), delay=00:00:02, xdelay=00:00:01, mailer=prog, pri=30032, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent It's acting as if /usr/local/mailman/mail/wrapper isn't executing, because no mail is sent out after this point. /usr/local/mailman# ls -al mail total 20 drwxrwsr-x 2 mailman mailman 512 Oct 31 23:02 . drwxrwsr-x 18 mailman mailman 512 Oct 31 14:55 .. -rwxr-sr-x 1 root mailman 17969 Oct 31 23:02 wrapper I'm coming up empty, here. If you have any ideas as to what the problem could be, please cc me as I am not a mailman-users subscriber. I hope someone can point me in the right direction, because at this point I'm muttering to myself. That's a bad sign. .\\ichelle --------------------- Michelle Brownsworth System Administrator PrimeLogic Corporation http://www.primelogic.com

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