Mailman 3 December 2001 - Mailman-Users

(Q) How to keep real addresses with email addresses
by Timothy Murphy 27 Dec '01

27 Dec '01

This question has probably been discussed at length before. But how do people incorporate mailman with a "database" -- perhaps in XML format -- containing other information about list members, eg their real names, addresses etc ? Am I right in assuming that mailman will not allow email address in the form "tim(a)maths.tcd.ie <Timothy Murphy>" as majordomo does ? In my case I'd rather keep more info than that (for a society) in XML format, and then keep that in sync with the mailman list. This surely must be something quite a lot of list-owners would like? Is there a standard way of doing it? -- Timothy Murphy e-mail: tim(a)maths.tcd.ie tel: 086-233 6090 s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

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ouch
by Nissley_Ron/EMM＠mail.emm.org 27 Dec '01

27 Dec '01

Would I be correct in surmising that the mailman-users list is having some difficulties?

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Problems with undeliverable mail
by Michelle Brownsworth 27 Dec '01

27 Dec '01

My mailhost is chugging away, trying over and over to deliver to a large batch of addresses with a .gov domain that doesn't resolve; this particular .gov nameserver is obviously having problems. And it's not from the sendmail's mail queue; /var/spool/mqueue/ is completely empty. It's Mailman reattempting to send to the problem addresses. So what can I do about this? Is there a way to force mailman to skip the problem recipients for this go-round, without having to modify hundreds of individual member configurations? That would be a gawd-awful thrash, and besides, the .gov DNS problems are likely temporary. How and where does Mailman keep track of the messages to be reattempted? Can I clear out some files from a directory or something? To complicate matters, I don't think that the 1800-member list has been processed entirely, so some members with kosher addresses haven't yet received their newsletter. The client is demanding to know what kind of bogus mailing list software we're running, he never had this kind of problem with Majordomo, etc., etc. Bah! .\\ichelle --------------------- Michelle Brownsworth System Administrator PrimeLogic Corporation http://www.primelogic.com

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Mailman a good fit for bulk mailing?
by Bryan Field-Elliot 27 Dec '01

27 Dec '01

I run a website wherein potential customers are volunteering their email addresses in order to receive product updates, etc. Again, just to be clear -- I run an *opt-in* mailing list of ads for a company. We've gotten started with Mailman (2.0.8), and while it's a great discussion engine, it doesn't seem to be very well suited for bulk mailing etc. For example, I was asked, "how do I know which people have received which mailings, etc.?", and of course I had no good answer based upon Mailman's capabilities. My questions are: 1. Are there features or usage patterns of Mailman (2.0.8) which are recommended for my use cases? 2. Will Mailman 2.1 have more features in this area? 3. Is there some other package entirely which I should be looking at, rather than Mailman? (GPL or similarly-licensed, preferably). Thank you, Bryan

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-request errors and password question
by Nissley_Ron/EMM＠mail.emm.org 27 Dec '01

27 Dec '01

When I send -request messages to my list, for example list-request(a)mail.mydomain.org, I receive errors like this: This is an automated response. There were problems with the email commands you sent to Mailman via the administrative address <list-request(a)mail.mydomain.org>. To obtain instructions on valid Mailman email commands, send email to <list-request(a)mail.mydomain.org> with the word "help" in the subject line or in the body of the message. The odd thing is that the correct result of the -request command is usually below this "error" message. Anyone have an idea what might be going on? I use MS Outlook, and I discovered that I can get around these "error" messages if I use the built-in editor rather than Word as my email editor and set the mail format to plain text. Are there any other options? I rather dislike plain text email...would like to at least be able to use HTML. Also, I would like to configure a list so that the subscribers are not required to have passwords. Is this possible with Mailman? Ron

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RE: [Mailman-Users] Mailman not sending out mail
by Michelle Brownsworth 26 Dec '01

26 Dec '01

Update: I removed all the 120 or so files from the qfiles directory, with the exception of the original newsletter posting to the list, and the newsletter started going out almost immediately to the 1880 subscribers. So what was it about those files that caused Mailman to choke? I've saved them for later examination, but it was necessary to use the steam-shovel approach since the two-day delay in sending out his newsletter was causing the client to go into cardiac arrest. Any thoughts? .\\ichelle > One thing I've had to do before is to ps jax |grep qrunner, kill any >running qrunner processes, and then cd to the locks dir, and delete any >remaing locks, so a clean instance of qrunner can start next time the cron >is processed. Probably not the best thing to do, but I have had to do it >before. > > -Richard Idalski Okay, I tried that but it didn't seem to help, so I rebooted the system. Still no joy. From the qrunner log: Dec 26 15:11:02 2001 (855) Could not acquire qrunner lock Dec 26 15:12:02 2001 (879) Could not acquire qrunner lock Dec 26 15:13:02 2001 (886) Could not acquire qrunner lock Dec 26 15:14:02 2001 (896) Could not acquire qrunner lock Dec 26 15:14:24 2001 (898) Could not acquire qrunner lock Dec 26 15:15:03 2001 (914) Could not acquire qrunner lock Dec 26 15:16:01 2001 (929) Could not acquire qrunner lock Dec 26 15:17:02 2001 (933) Could not acquire qrunner lock And new locks have been created: /usr/local/mailman/logs# ls -al ../locks/ total 4 drwxrwsr-x 2 mailman mailman 512 Dec 26 15:28 . drwxrwsr-x 18 mailman mailman 512 Oct 31 14:55 .. -rw-rw-r-- 2 mailman mailman 69 Dec 27 00:57 qrunner.lock -rw-rw-r-- 2 mailman mailman 69 Dec 27 00:57 qrunner.lock.straylight.primelogic.com.71237 The strange thing is, Mailman's three lists were working perfectly until the 24th. I ran check_perms to see if permissions had gotten changed somehow, but they're okay. But there's something I'm not comprehending here. A working system shouldn't just suddenly stop working. .\\ichelle >-----Original Message----- >From: mailman-users-admin(a)python.org >[mailto:mailman-users-admin@python.org]On Behalf Of Michelle Brownsworth >Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2001 4:31 PM >To: mailman-users(a)python.org >Cc: Richard Idalski >Subject: RE: [Mailman-Users] Mailman not sending out mail > > >>Is anything showing up in mailman's error log? $prefix/mailman/logs/error. >>There could be something there to shed some light on this. As far as, >>getting rid of the extra postings, if they're still floating around the >>qfiles dir, just delete the corrosponding .msg, and .db files for the extra >>posting... be sure to leave at least one set however so it does go out. >> >> >> -Richard Idalski > > >Nope, not a thing in the error log; that was the first place I >looked. Thanks for the tip about the qfiles dir, though. > >.\\ichelle > > >>-----Original Message----- >>From: mailman-users-admin(a)python.org >>[mailto:mailman-users-admin@python.org]On Behalf Of Michelle Brownsworth >>Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2001 4:02 PM >>To: mailman-users(a)python.org >>Subject: [Mailman-Users] Mailman not sending out mail >> >> >>Gentle friends, >> >>I'm having a problem with Mailman 2.06, running on FreeBSD >>4.4-RELEASE. It has been working perfectly up until now, serving >>three lists. All of a sudden it won't send out mail posted to a >>list, although the wrapper receives it. Here's the most recent post >>made by the moderator of the largest (1500) list: >> >>Dec 25 20:41:05 straylight sendmail[48896]: fBQ4f4U48896: >>from=<FISH1IFR(a)aol.com >>>, size=66192, class=0, nrcpts=1, >>>msgid=<f3.13c33a14.295aad85(a)aol.com>, proto=ES >>MTP, daemon=MTA, relay=imo-d05.mx.aol.com [205.188.157.37] >>Dec 25 20:41:06 straylight sendmail[48897]: fBQ4f4U48896: >>to="|/usr/local/mailma >>n/mail/wrapper post fishlink", >>ctladdr=<fishlink(a)straylight.primelogic.com> (1/0 > >), delay=00:00:02, xdelay=00:00:01, mailer=prog, pri=95692, >>dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent >> >>The cron jobs seem to be running every minute: >> >>68546 ?? I 0:00.00 cron: running job (cron) >>68550 ?? Is 0:00.01 /bin/sh -c /usr/local/bin/python -S >>/usr/local/mailman/cron/qrunner >>68554 ?? I 0:00.67 /usr/local/bin/python -S >>/usr/local/mailman/cron/qrunner >> >>But I'm getting this message in /usr/local/mailman/logs: >> >>Dec 25 20:48:01 2001 (48945) Could not acquire qrunner lock >>Dec 25 20:49:02 2001 (48948) Could not acquire qrunner lock > >Dec 25 20:50:02 2001 (48956) Could not acquire qrunner lock >>Dec 25 20:51:02 2001 (48960) Could not acquire qrunner lock >>Dec 25 20:52:01 2001 (48968) Could not acquire qrunner lock >>Dec 25 20:54:02 2001 (48977) Could not acquire qrunner lock >>Dec 25 20:55:03 2001 (48986) Could not acquire qrunner lock >> >>Lock files are being created: >> >>/usr/local/mailman/locks# ls -al >>total 4 >>drwxrwsr-x 2 mailman mailman 512 Dec 26 12:07 . >>drwxrwsr-x 18 mailman mailman 512 Oct 31 14:55 .. >>-rw-rw-r-- 2 mailman mailman 69 Dec 26 21:52 qrunner.lock >>-rw-rw-r-- 2 mailman mailman 69 Dec 26 21:52 >>qrunner.lock.straylight.primelogic.com.68866 >>/usr/local/mailman/locks# ls -al >>total 4 >>drwxrwsr-x 2 mailman mailman 512 Dec 26 12:46 . >>drwxrwsr-x 18 mailman mailman 512 Oct 31 14:55 .. >>-rw-rw-r-- 2 mailman mailman 69 Dec 26 22:28 qrunner.lock >>-rw-rw-r-- 2 mailman mailman 69 Dec 26 22:28 >>qrunner.lock.straylight.primelogic.com.69414 >> >>Oddly, the times on the lockfiles are off, set in the future. Here's >>the current time: >> >>/usr/local/mailman/locks# date >>Wed Dec 26 12:47:11 PST 2001 >> >>I removed the locks as a test but they were recreated with different >>numeric extensions. >> >>/usr/local/mailman/logs/post has no entries corresponding to the post >above. >> >>Also, if the problem is solved the list owner will not want all three >>of his attempts to post to be delivered. Is there a means to delete >>the last two attempts so his subscribers won't be spammed with the >>same newsletter? >> >>Hope someone can shed some light, because I'm at a loss here. >> >>.\\ichelle >>--------------------- >>Michelle Brownsworth >>System Administrator >>PrimeLogic Corporation >>http://www.primelogic.com >> >>------------------------------------------------------ >>Mailman-Users maillist - Mailman-Users(a)python.org >>http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users >> >> >>------------------------------------------------------ >>Mailman-Users maillist - Mailman-Users(a)python.org >>http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users > > >------------------------------------------------------ >Mailman-Users maillist - Mailman-Users(a)python.org >http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users

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Mailman 2.0.8 vs Konqueror 2.2
by Jeff Simmons 26 Dec '01

26 Dec '01

I recently upgraded my Mailman installation from 2.0.5 to 2.0.8, and it seems to have broken the cookie placement feature on the Konqueror 2.2 web browser. I can no longer use Konqueror to admin Mailman. Any admin submissions or page changes give a "Error decoding authorization cookie" message, and a subsequent dump back to the admin login page. This does NOT happen when using either Netscape or Mozilla. For me, this is a minor glitch, and I plan to upgrade my Konqueror (and KDE) to 2.2.2 RSN. Just thought I'd let somebody know. -- Jeff Simmons jsimmons(a)goblin.punk.net Simmons Consulting - Network Engineering, Administration, Security "You guys, I don't hear any noise. Are you sure you're doing it right?" - My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult

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RE: [Mailman-Users] Mailman not sending out mail
by Michelle Brownsworth 26 Dec '01

26 Dec '01

> One thing I've had to do before is to ps jax |grep qrunner, kill any >running qrunner processes, and then cd to the locks dir, and delete any >remaing locks, so a clean instance of qrunner can start next time the cron >is processed. Probably not the best thing to do, but I have had to do it >before. > > -Richard Idalski Okay, I tried that but it didn't seem to help, so I rebooted the system. Still no joy. From the qrunner log: Dec 26 15:11:02 2001 (855) Could not acquire qrunner lock Dec 26 15:12:02 2001 (879) Could not acquire qrunner lock Dec 26 15:13:02 2001 (886) Could not acquire qrunner lock Dec 26 15:14:02 2001 (896) Could not acquire qrunner lock Dec 26 15:14:24 2001 (898) Could not acquire qrunner lock Dec 26 15:15:03 2001 (914) Could not acquire qrunner lock Dec 26 15:16:01 2001 (929) Could not acquire qrunner lock Dec 26 15:17:02 2001 (933) Could not acquire qrunner lock And new locks have been created: /usr/local/mailman/logs# ls -al ../locks/ total 4 drwxrwsr-x 2 mailman mailman 512 Dec 26 15:28 . drwxrwsr-x 18 mailman mailman 512 Oct 31 14:55 .. -rw-rw-r-- 2 mailman mailman 69 Dec 27 00:57 qrunner.lock -rw-rw-r-- 2 mailman mailman 69 Dec 27 00:57 qrunner.lock.straylight.primelogic.com.71237 The strange thing is, Mailman's three lists were working perfectly until the 24th. I ran check_perms to see if permissions had gotten changed somehow, but they're okay. But there's something I'm not comprehending here. A working system shouldn't just suddenly stop working. .\\ichelle >-----Original Message----- >From: mailman-users-admin(a)python.org >[mailto:mailman-users-admin@python.org]On Behalf Of Michelle Brownsworth >Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2001 4:31 PM >To: mailman-users(a)python.org >Cc: Richard Idalski >Subject: RE: [Mailman-Users] Mailman not sending out mail > > >>Is anything showing up in mailman's error log? $prefix/mailman/logs/error. >>There could be something there to shed some light on this. As far as, >>getting rid of the extra postings, if they're still floating around the >>qfiles dir, just delete the corrosponding .msg, and .db files for the extra >>posting... be sure to leave at least one set however so it does go out. >> >> >> -Richard Idalski > > >Nope, not a thing in the error log; that was the first place I >looked. Thanks for the tip about the qfiles dir, though. > >.\\ichelle > > >>-----Original Message----- >>From: mailman-users-admin(a)python.org >>[mailto:mailman-users-admin@python.org]On Behalf Of Michelle Brownsworth >>Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2001 4:02 PM >>To: mailman-users(a)python.org >>Subject: [Mailman-Users] Mailman not sending out mail >> >> >>Gentle friends, >> >>I'm having a problem with Mailman 2.06, running on FreeBSD >>4.4-RELEASE. It has been working perfectly up until now, serving >>three lists. All of a sudden it won't send out mail posted to a >>list, although the wrapper receives it. Here's the most recent post >>made by the moderator of the largest (1500) list: >> >>Dec 25 20:41:05 straylight sendmail[48896]: fBQ4f4U48896: >>from=<FISH1IFR(a)aol.com >>>, size=66192, class=0, nrcpts=1, >>>msgid=<f3.13c33a14.295aad85(a)aol.com>, proto=ES >>MTP, daemon=MTA, relay=imo-d05.mx.aol.com [205.188.157.37] >>Dec 25 20:41:06 straylight sendmail[48897]: fBQ4f4U48896: >>to="|/usr/local/mailma >>n/mail/wrapper post fishlink", >>ctladdr=<fishlink(a)straylight.primelogic.com> (1/0 >>), delay=00:00:02, xdelay=00:00:01, mailer=prog, pri=95692, >>dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent >> >>The cron jobs seem to be running every minute: >> >>68546 ?? I 0:00.00 cron: running job (cron) >>68550 ?? Is 0:00.01 /bin/sh -c /usr/local/bin/python -S >>/usr/local/mailman/cron/qrunner >>68554 ?? I 0:00.67 /usr/local/bin/python -S >>/usr/local/mailman/cron/qrunner >> >>But I'm getting this message in /usr/local/mailman/logs: >> >>Dec 25 20:48:01 2001 (48945) Could not acquire qrunner lock >>Dec 25 20:49:02 2001 (48948) Could not acquire qrunner lock > >Dec 25 20:50:02 2001 (48956) Could not acquire qrunner lock >>Dec 25 20:51:02 2001 (48960) Could not acquire qrunner lock >>Dec 25 20:52:01 2001 (48968) Could not acquire qrunner lock >>Dec 25 20:54:02 2001 (48977) Could not acquire qrunner lock >>Dec 25 20:55:03 2001 (48986) Could not acquire qrunner lock >> >>Lock files are being created: >> >>/usr/local/mailman/locks# ls -al >>total 4 >>drwxrwsr-x 2 mailman mailman 512 Dec 26 12:07 . >>drwxrwsr-x 18 mailman mailman 512 Oct 31 14:55 .. >>-rw-rw-r-- 2 mailman mailman 69 Dec 26 21:52 qrunner.lock >>-rw-rw-r-- 2 mailman mailman 69 Dec 26 21:52 >>qrunner.lock.straylight.primelogic.com.68866 >>/usr/local/mailman/locks# ls -al >>total 4 >>drwxrwsr-x 2 mailman mailman 512 Dec 26 12:46 . >>drwxrwsr-x 18 mailman mailman 512 Oct 31 14:55 .. >>-rw-rw-r-- 2 mailman mailman 69 Dec 26 22:28 qrunner.lock >>-rw-rw-r-- 2 mailman mailman 69 Dec 26 22:28 >>qrunner.lock.straylight.primelogic.com.69414 >> >>Oddly, the times on the lockfiles are off, set in the future. Here's >>the current time: >> >>/usr/local/mailman/locks# date >>Wed Dec 26 12:47:11 PST 2001 >> >>I removed the locks as a test but they were recreated with different >>numeric extensions. >> >>/usr/local/mailman/logs/post has no entries corresponding to the post >above. >> >>Also, if the problem is solved the list owner will not want all three >>of his attempts to post to be delivered. Is there a means to delete >>the last two attempts so his subscribers won't be spammed with the >>same newsletter? >> >>Hope someone can shed some light, because I'm at a loss here. >> >>.\\ichelle >>--------------------- >>Michelle Brownsworth >>System Administrator >>PrimeLogic Corporation >>http://www.primelogic.com >> >>------------------------------------------------------ >>Mailman-Users maillist - Mailman-Users(a)python.org >>http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users >> >> >>------------------------------------------------------ >>Mailman-Users maillist - Mailman-Users(a)python.org >>http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users > > >------------------------------------------------------ >Mailman-Users maillist - Mailman-Users(a)python.org >http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users

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error in importing mbox-files
by Andreas Kotowicz 26 Dec '01

26 Dec '01

hi, i've just installed mailman 2.0.8 and have set up a mailinglist. everything works fine and now I wanted to convert the old mbox archiv file to mailman. so I did a "cat oldarchiv >> archiv.mbox" and then a "bin/arch archiv". most of the mails get converted correctly but the mails from december 2000 get into december 2001. this happens for all archives i try to convert. the headers in those mails are fine so i don't really see where the problem is. maybe someone can help. thanks, andreas

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Mailman help
by David 26 Dec '01

26 Dec '01

I have installed Rhat 7.2 and Mailman 2.0.6 and all is working except for the mail processing. I get the messages and approve them, but they are never sent. The following error is logged in the smtp log: All reipients refused: (111, Connection refused) Sendmail is able to send and receive mail. Is there something I need to have opened specifically for Mailman? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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