Mailman 3 October 2002 - Mailman-Users

Please Help
by jsingh 01 Nov '02

01 Nov '02

Hey Guys I am a newbie doing this mailman install. So far I have installed everything fine, I am able to view almost everything over the web(leaving the archives). I created a new mailing list, and mailman sent out a message to all the subscribers I enrolled. But when I send a message to the mailing list I got this in my Mail log "Oct 30 18:58:18 dragon sendmail[1508]: g9UNwImp001508: <mytestlist(a)dragon.fdu.edu>... User unknown " So I sent an email back to the admin and I got the same thing back "Oct 30 19:02:53 dragon sendmail[5302]: g9V02rmp005302: <mytestlist-admin(a)dragon.fdu.edu>... User unknown " Could anyone possibly tell me where I am staggering from my path. Please I need help on this, anyone who does , my thanks to them before hand. Newbie --

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Re: [Mailman-Users] permissions problem in Debian
by J C Lawrence 01 Nov '02

01 Nov '02

On Thu, 31 Oct 2002 13:54:09 +0300 Odhiambo Washington <wash(a)wananchi.com> wrote: > Ok. So on Debian, what are the following values? > mailman userid mailman groupid list.list for /testing. -- 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: OFFTOPIC Re: [Mailman-Users] Archive URL in postings (2.1b3)
by J C Lawrence 01 Nov '02

01 Nov '02

On 31 Oct 2002 10:44:40 +0000 Nigel Metheringham <Nigel.Metheringham(a)dev.InTechnology.co.uk> wrote: > On Thu, 2002-10-31 at 10:11, J C Lawrence wrote: > True - the discussion has become a mixture of what Mailman should be > able to do, along with how Mailman should be running this list.... <nod> > and to a large degree my To comments are in relation to this list with > the obvious requirement that it must be possible to run Mailman > without playing games with the To header :-) +1 -- 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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from log files
by greg＠solution-link.com 01 Nov '02

01 Nov '02

Hello I have a question about a process running I am having this one process running over and over and I'm not sure if it is a sign of something gone wrong or if its normal can someone advise me if it is a problem and what the fix is or if I should disregard. copy of message in logs >>>>>>>. Oct 31 11:22:00 mail CROND[7188]: (mailman) CMD (/usr/bin/python -S /home/mailman/cron/qrunner) Oct 31 11:22:59 mail CROND[7208]: (mailman) CMD (/usr/bin/python -S /home/mailman/cron/qrunner) Oct 31 11:23:00 mail CROND[7210]: (mailman) CMD (/usr/bin/python -S /home/mailman/cron/qrunner) Greg Makuch Whatever Computes Ltd. http://www.whatevercomputes.com greg(a)whatevercomputes.com phone: 306-569-4174 Toll-free: 1-877-291-3269

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mailman cron strangeness
by Albert Everett 01 Nov '02

01 Nov '02

A few days ago I installed FreeBSD 4.7 on a server after backing up /usr/local/mailman to an iBook running OSX. After rebooting the server, I installed Mailman 2.0.13 from the ports collection. After the Mailman installation, I copied the lists and archives back into /usr/local/mailman on the server from the iBook and ran check_perms and check_db. After that, I adjusted list and archives perms manually, using a working Mailman installation (another FreeBSD machine) as an example. The web interface to the lists is doing fine. Sendmail config is fine. PROBLEM: Delivery to the Mailman lists works fine, but posted messages aren't blown out to list members. Troubleshooting so far: -- mailman user and group in place -- perms inside /usr/local/mailman/cron are same as on another working Mailman machine, same for /var/cron/tabs/mailman -- python executable by everyone -- perms on scripts in /usr/local/mailman/cron are 644, owned by root:mailman -- /var/cron/tabs/mailman is in place and is the same as /usr/local/mailman/cron/crontab.in -- /var/log/cron shows qrunner being run every minute, but /var/log/maillog not showing any delivery to list members -- qrunner works when I run 'python -S qrunnner' manually as root, afterward /var/log/maillog shows successful delivery to list members I'm out of ideas. Anyone out there have a clue? Albert

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Re: OFFTOPIC Re: [Mailman-Users] Archive URL in postings (2.1b3)
by Jay Sekora 01 Nov '02

01 Nov '02

> well, To: is who the email is sent to. CC: are other interested > parties. And who gets to decide that - the actual creator of the content who understands what the message is about, or a piece of infrastructure software that treats all messages it receives the same way? I don't mind the subject-munging that mailman does if the list owner adds an identifying tag because that's added to the existing header the composer typed; the original information is still there. Do you think it would make sense, on most lists, to *replace* the subject with (eg) "Subject: Mail from $sender to $listname on $date"? That's the same sort of thing. > > Whatever the merits of your arguments about what headers I should be > > using > > to filter which lists, the fact is that taking something the original > > composer of the mail entered in the To: field and moving it to the Cc: > But you're making a false assumption here, that the list was in the to > line. That's not a safe assumption. No, I'm not making that assumption at all. I'm assuming that the person who typed in the message put the list address where s/he thought it belonged. I want to *know* where that person thought it belonged. I know that the list might be in the To: line, in the Cc: line, in the Apparently-To: line added by an MTA, or not reflected in the RFC822 headers at all, and I want to be able to distinguish those cases. > it could be in to, cc or bcc. Just > as you could be in to, cc or bcc. if you're assuming where the > addresses are, you'll break at random occasions when users don't follow > your ideas of appropriate. What mailman is doing is standardizing where > that stuff ends up on redelivery, so if anything, it's more reliable > than the existing system, which is random but assumes a certain > behavior. Whether I put an address in the To: list or the Cc: list or the Bcc: list when I compose a message is *not* random, but deliberately chosen. I don't *want* it "standardized" - it's content-bearing. FWIW, Jay

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Re: OFFTOPIC Re: [Mailman-Users] Archive URL in postings (2.1b3)
by J C Lawrence 01 Nov '02

01 Nov '02

On Tue, 29 Oct 2002 13:33:08 -0600 John Buttery <john(a)io.com> wrote: > * Chuq Von Rospach <chuqui(a)plaidworks.com> [2002-10-29 10:45:28 > -0800]: >> On Tuesday, October 29, 2002, at 10:38 AM, Jay Sekora wrote: >> Because it's simply a lie. I got this mail with the headers: >> sorry. don't agree. > "Lie" is kinda an interesting way to put it, but I think we all know > what he means. How can you say that readdressing a mail (which is > what you're doing here) isn't a "lie" the way he's referring to it? > It's in plain black and white. Sure it is. You assuming a certain set of semantic connotations for the To: and Cc: headers and then inferentially assume that everybody else operates on the same understanding of those headers. The problem is that its just not true. Your assumptions are neither universal or necessarily shared. >> >What that means to me is that Chuq Von Rospach knows me, knows my >> email >address, deliberately decided to send this mail to me >> specifically, >> >> um, interesting philosophy. I don't buy it. Not for a moment. > Well, OK then, how would you differentiate this new behaviour from a > hypothetical message I might have sent pre-upgrade that _did_ have > your address in the To: and the list in the CC:? One has a List-ID header, one doesn't. One has an In-Reply-To that references my prior post, one doesn't. > Hint: you can't. Sure I can. > (Of course, I acknowledge that sending a copy directly to a person who > is already subscribed to the list is a bit silly/redundant, but I > don't see that that dilutes the point at all. In five seconds I can > think of a case where this would happen...I see a mail off the list, I > don't know someone is subscribed, so I send them my followup but also > CC the list because I think it pertains there also. With this new > function, you've just erased anybody's ability to tell the difference > between those two situations.) Ignoring the aspects of etiquette in quoting a private email in a public forum, this is also not a problem for the same reasons as above. -- 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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obscure email addresses_ where?
by TyrusMaynard 01 Nov '02

01 Nov '02

In my short experience as a Mailman 2.0.13 list administrator, I have had this setting: obscure_addresses (privacy): Show member addrs so they're not directly recognizable as email addrs? toggled as "Yes" since the inception of the list. The help says that the following will result: "Setting this option causes member email addresses to be transformed when they are presented on list web pages (both in text and as links), so they're not trivially recognizable as email addresses. The intention is to to prevent the addresses from being snarfed up by automated web scanners for use by spammers". However the mail items in the list archives still show the "@" in all email addresses. Only the list of member addresses has an "AT" replacement to thwart spam robot scanners ( and that is configured to be viewed only by admin anyway). ???Is this feature working properly? ... and will there be a future Mailman version that will eliminate emails entirely so that they elude more than trivial interpretation? Since I also have the archives set to a private status: (archive_private (archive), could this privacy setting be the reason why the "@" values are not substituted.? If so , can I expect for the emails to be hidden or substituted if and when the archive is coverted to public status. Thanks Tyrus Maynard

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Re: OFFTOPIC Re: [Mailman-Users] Archive URL in postings (2.1b3)
by Jay Sekora 01 Nov '02

01 Nov '02

> > However I find the addition of my delivery address into the To line > > highly irritating > > Why? I'm curious. Because it's simply a lie. I got this mail with the headers: From: Chuq Von Rospach <chuqui(a)plaidworks.com> To: jay(a)ccs.neu.edu cc: Mailman mailing list management users <mailman-users(a)python.org> What that means to me is that Chuq Von Rospach knows me, knows my email address, deliberately decided to send this mail to me specifically, and thinks that the subscribers of mailman-users(a)python.org might be interested in looking over our shoulders as we have this personal conversation. I often put people and/or lists in the To: or Cc: headers, or Bcc: headers, depending on the content of the mail and how important I think it is to them. I will trust lists less if they mess with what I put there. I sometimes put actual content that is important to the message in those headers, such as: To: People who attended my last party <jay(a)example.org> Bcc: jay-party-list(a)example.org Subject: Somebody left a jacket I expect that people with civilized mailers are going to be able to see what I typed in the To: (and From: and Cc:) headers, and I consider that part of the message. Back to filtering, I filter lots of my mailing lists into separate folders, but I only do so if my own address doesn't appear in the destination headers, because in that case I consider the message addressed to me as an individual as well as to the list, and I want it to end up in the place where mail-addressed-to-me-as-an-individual goes. With this change that distinction is lost. I can no longer tell (except by seeing how many copies of a message I got, which may break in other ways if a message is sent to multiple lists) whether I was singled out as a particular more-interested recipient of a message, or if I got it only because I'm subscribed to a list. For lists I administer, I'll just turn this off when I migrate. For lists I'm subscribed to but filter to folders and read in batch mode, I'll just change my filters to adapt. That loses me the adavantage of treating messages that actually *did* list me individually as a recipient differently, and means that I might not see something that was sent to the list but Cc:'ed to me for some time, and might not get the chance to respond in a timely fashion. For lists I'm subscribed to but *don't* filter to folders and normally read interspersed with the rest of my mail, I'd find the new behaviour sufficiently awful that I'd start filtering them (and be much less likely to read them in a timely fashion). The end result (if Mailman-run lists were to routinely switch to this behaviour) is that I'll be subscribed to fewer lists than I am now, and that of the lists I stay subscribed to, I'll be a less active participant. (On the other hand, I really want personalized footers and mailman-not-rfc822 "headers".) If the new behaviour is optional and not the default, and you don't have to enable the (RFC822) header munging in order to turn on personalized delivery, then I see no problem with the new functionality being there. I can even imagine certain very special-purpose, broadcast-only lists where it might be desirable. But it's certainly not a behaviour I would want on any list I was subscribed to. Sorry if this message comes across as heated. Maybe I've taken this discussion more personally because it was all addressed to me specifically. :-) Mailman is fabulous, and the improvements in the new version are generally great, and I'm looking forward to migrating to 2.1, and I think my users are going to love some of the new features. But I sure am glad this particular change isn't going to be the default, (and I hope it doesn't prevent me from turning on personalized footers). Cheers, Jay

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Disguising e-mail addresses in 2.0.x impossible??
by Odhiambo Washington 01 Nov '02

01 Nov '02

Hiya, Perhaps I don't know how to frame the question. That may explain why I've never received a response for it. I am asking for the last time this one. I know it is possible, because Nigel has done it on exim0users archives. How do I make the e-mail addresses of the posters appear as "user at domain" and not user@domain in the searchable archives? In exim-users archives, the footer says " This archive was generated by Pipermail 0.05 (Mailman edition)." I hope it's not pipermail that does the disguising, but some code within Mailman. Which patch is that one?? Well, how is it done???? Specific reference to 2.0.x. Thanks in advance. cheers - wash +----------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ Odhiambo Washington, wash(a)wananchi.com . WANANCHI ONLINE LTD (Nairobi, KE) | http://ns2.wananchi.com/~wash/ . 1ere Etage, Loita Hse, Loita St., | GSM: (+254) 722 743 223 . # 10286, 00100 NAIROBI | +---------------------------------+------------------------------------------+ "Oh My God! They killed init! You Bastards!" --from a /. post

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