Mailman 3 April 2006 - Mailman-Users

Can this be done with Mailman?
by Odhiambo Washington 25 Apr '06

25 Apr '06

Hello List-ers, Today, my boss, in one of his crazy thoughts, asked me if it's possible (with Mailman or other MLM) to have a mailing list that would have the following restrictions: 1. The list will be archived 2. The list admin can search all archives 3. A list member is only allowed to search through the archives, but can only view what s/he posted, not what other members posted! Now, if you guys don't have a boss whose imagination is beyond what has been done already, you need to work for my boss, I swear ;) I have been thinking about this requirement the whole day. This guy happens to me my internal client also. Does anyone know someone who has thought along these angles and implemented the same with Mailman, or other software? I'd be happy to RTFM if there is one lying somewhere. cheers - wash +----------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ Odhiambo Washington . WANANCHI ONLINE LTD (Nairobi, KE) | wash () WANANCHI ! com . 1ere Etage, Loita Hse, Loita St., | GSM: (+254) 722 743 223 . # 10286, 00100 NAIROBI | GSM: (+254) 733 744 121 . (+254) 020 313 985 - 9 | +---------------------------------+------------------------------------------+ "Oh My God! They killed init! You Bastards!" --from a /. post

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Restoring Mailman lists
by Brian Fahrlander 25 Apr '06

25 Apr '06

Mailman is a well-made, but odd product for an administrator (not a programmer): it's slick, simple, reliable, everything you'd want from a mailing list but one: a clearness of documentation. I've installed it at least three times, and I swear I couldn't tell you how to. Sendmail, on the other hand, when you've installed it, you *know* how you did it, ya know? That's what's making things hard for us, here. The OS is Fedora Core 4 (Ubuntu's not quite ready) and we're running the most recent RPM available, mailman-2.1.5-35.fc4. A server was running this for several years- one of my mentioned installs. It's now run long enough to start to worry about the reliability of the drives, and for subsequent admins to make some mistakes that turned a bit messy. So a new drive is /dev/hda, and the old one is /dev/hdc, and mounted read-only, as /archive until we're completely transitioned. And ya know- I coulda *sworn* the actual list of subscribers was in a text file in a previous version, but it isn't. Key questions: 1. What, explicitly, do I copy from the archive to get the lists back, and what steps do I take to make them work? Simply copying the files that seem right, don't work at all. I suspect the binary to check the configuration will be involved, but the docs are driving me up a tree. 2. Am I doing this right? Usually when I spend a couple of days Googling and turn up nothing, it means I'm doing something wrong... -- Don't be fooled by lovesongs and lonely hearts...you're living in a Twilight World. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Brian Fahrländer Christian, Conservative, and Technomad Evansville, IN http://Fahrlander.net/brian ICQ: 5119262 AOL/Yahoo/GoogleTalk: WheelDweller ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Using gmail SMTP and mailman together
by Matthew Price 25 Apr '06

25 Apr '06

I am trying to find some free software that will allow me to issue an email newsletter for year long road trip that I will be taking. I have about 200 people that are interested in receiving periodic updates by email. I have a gmail address reserved for this purpose and would LOVE to use their SMTP service to issue these updates while on the road with my laptop. I looked through the docs and list archives by I couldn't find any answer to a few questions. Can mailman be configured to connect and authenticate to a remote, secure SMTP server rather than an unsecured local one? This will be a read-only list that I am setting up, so a list enging could concievable run from my laptop while connected to a hotspot and the let any replies come back to the gmail address rather than being collected and redistributed though mailman. I wrote a perl script years ago to do something similar, but I don't have the time now to reproduce it. Is there some other piece of software I could run instead that would remail a single message to a list of addresses? I know that sounds like a spam engine, but the specific functionality I need is the ability to make a TLS connection to the gmail smtp server and not fire them off myself without any smtp server. Thanks for any help, Matthew

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Messages are addressed to "mylist" rather than to "subscriber"
by Michael D. Hensley 25 Apr '06

25 Apr '06

I have just configured mailman on my RedHat Linux AS v4 server. The first problem I'd like to address is: Messages sent to the list arrive at the subscribers mailbox with a "To:" field of, for example, mylist(a)example.com rather than the subscribers email address. I've poked at the configuration with a sharp stick for a while, but I can't find anything that seems to control this. Can anyone offer a hint where I might have screwed it up, and how to fix it? Thanks!

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Postfix Virtual Mailbox Domains
by Duncan Drury 25 Apr '06

25 Apr '06

I have postfix set up on FreeBSD with virtual mailbox domains (i.e. mailboxes don't map to freeBSD accounts). All the documentation I have found about Mailman talks about virtual alias domains. I haven't been able to find any detailed information on how mailman should be set up in such circumstances despite much googling. So I am trying to set up virtual alias domains for mailman to handle alongside the existing virtual mailbox domains. I'm asking on the Postfix mailing list if this is wise (so far not sure if it will work at all!). I was wondering if anyone here had any experience getting mailman working with virtual mailbox domains and would be able to pass on any wisdom. Cheers, Duncan

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Question about Configure --with-var-prefix=dir
by Barry Finkel 25 Apr '06

25 Apr '06

I am starting testing of mailman to see if it fits our needs and to see how it compares to other mailing list manangement packages. I want to configure my test system with the installation on a disk local to the Solaris 10 system, but I want the mutable data on a shared file system (in my case AFS). The installation instructions "2.2 Create the installation directory" has % cd $prefix % chgrp mailman . % chmod a+rx,g+ws . and "3.1 Run configure" has --with-var-prefix=dir Store mutable data under dir instead of under the $prefix or $exec_prefix. Examples of such data include the list archives and list settings database. There is nothing in the instructions to do step 2.2 in the "mutable" directory, but the configure script stops if the directory is not set up per section 2.2. The AFS (Andrew File System) is different than a regular Unix file system in that it uses ACLs for permission. Does anyone have any experience in placing the mutable data in AFS? Thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Barry S. Finkel Computing and Information Systems Division Argonne National Laboratory Phone: +1 (630) 252-7277 9700 South Cass Avenue Facsimile:+1 (630) 252-4601 Building 222, Room D209 Internet: BSFinkel(a)anl.gov Argonne, IL 60439-4828 IBMMAIL: I1004994

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You don't have permission to access /pipermail/ on this server.
by Noah 24 Apr '06

24 Apr '06

mailman-2.1.7 apache 2.2.0 FreeBSD-4.11 Thanks again for all your help. I never found anything in the intsallation manual as the check_perms message suggests. but what I did do was remove all other permissions and put the ownership of the private directory to www to solve the problem. check_perms works well now. # ls -l total 6 drwxrws--- 103 www mailman 2560 Apr 21 21:49 private drwxrwsr-x 2 mailman mailman 1536 Apr 21 21:49 public Maybe somebody with the mailman documents team could update their documents and/or make this type of information easier to find. cheers, Noah

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Postfix Does Not Recognize Mailman Accounts
by Richard Petty 24 Apr '06

24 Apr '06

I'm running a multi-domain email server on a CentOS4 system, configured using the instructions found here: http://wanderingbarque.com/howtos/mailserver/mailserver.html I've got one real domain and two virtual domains, with LDAP-based user accounts, and it has been working very well for over a year. I've been VERY happy with this setup: realdomain.com virtualdomain1.com virtualdomain2.com I decided to support maillist activities on virtualdomain1. I read all the user docs and set everything up as closely to the instructions as I could. My Mailman web interface seems to work fine. I wanted each domain to be able host its own Mailman but my research indicates that probably won't happen. I can live with that. So, I created a maillist using a virtual domain's name for the list name and the real domain name for the domain. The list email address looks like this: virtualdomain1(a)realdomain.com I had no problems configuring the list using the web interface. I set myself up as the list administrator and placed a single email address into the user list for the testing phase. I received the expected admin welcome message from Mailman and the expected user welcome message from Mailman, however, when I sent a message to the list I get an "unknown account"-type message from Postfix. Here are the relevant statements from Postfix's main.cf file: virtual_alias_maps = ldap:aliases, hash:/etc/mailman/virtual-mailman alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases, hash:/etc/mailman/aliases BTW, those file paths for the Mailman map files are correct. I cat'ed them out and the content seems reasonable: The Mailman "alias" file contains: # STANZA START: virtualdomain1 # CREATED: Sun Apr 23 17:28:47 2006 virtualdomain1: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman post virtualdomain1" virtualdomain1-admin: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman admin virtualdomain1" virtualdomain1-bounces: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman bounces virtualdomain1" virtualdomain1-confirm: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman confirm virtualdomain1" virtualdomain1-join: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman join virtualdomain1" virtualdomain1-leave: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman leave virtualdomain1" virtualdomain1-owner: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman owner virtualdomain1" virtualdomain1-request: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman request virtualdomain1" virtualdomain1-subscribe: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman subscribe virtualdomain1" virtualdomain1-unsubscribe: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman unsubscribe virtualdomain1" # STANZA END: virtualdomain1 # STANZA START: mailman # CREATED: Sun Apr 23 17:28:48 2006 mailman: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman post mailman" mailman-admin: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman admin mailman" mailman-bounces: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman bounces mailman" mailman-confirm: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman confirm mailman" mailman-join: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman join mailman" mailman-leave: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman leave mailman" mailman-owner: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman owner mailman" mailman-request: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman request mailman" mailman-subscribe: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman subscribe mailman" mailman-unsubscribe: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman unsubscribe mailman" # STANZA END: mailman The Mailman "virtual-mailman" contains: # STANZA START: virtualdomain1 # CREATED: Sun Apr 23 17:28:47 2006 virtualdomain1(a)realdomain.com virtualdomain1 virtualdomain1-admin(a)realdomain.com virtualdomain1-admin virtualdomain1-bounces(a)realdomain.com virtualdomain1-bounces virtualdomain1-confirm(a)realdomain.com virtualdomain1-confirm virtualdomain1-join(a)realdomain.com virtualdomain1-join virtualdomain1-leave(a)realdomain.com virtualdomain1-leave virtualdomain1-owner(a)realdomain.com virtualdomain1-owner virtualdomain1-request(a)realdomain.com virtualdomain1-request virtualdomain1-subscribe(a)realdomain.com virtualdomain1-subscribe virtualdomain1-unsubscribe(a)realdomain.com virtualdomain1-unsubscribe # STANZA END: virtualdomain1 # STANZA START: mailman # CREATED: Sun Apr 23 17:28:48 2006 mailman(a)realdomain.com mailman mailman-admin(a)realdomain.com mailman-admin mailman-bounces(a)realdomain.com mailman-bounces mailman-confirm(a)realdomain.com mailman-confirm mailman-join(a)realdomain.com mailman-join mailman-leave(a)realdomain.com mailman-leave mailman-owner(a)realdomain.com mailman-owner mailman-request(a)realdomain.com mailman-request mailman-subscribe(a)realdomain.com mailman-subscribe mailman-unsubscribe(a)realdomain.com mailman-unsubscribe # STANZA END: mailman Here are the relevant statements from Mailman's mm_cfg.py file: MTA = 'Postfix' DEFAULT_URL_HOST = 'realdomain.com' DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST = 'realdomain.com' add_virtualhost(DEFAULT_URL_HOST, DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST) POSTFIX_STYLE_VIRTUAL_DOMAINS = ['virtualdomain1.com','virtualdomain2.com'] Does anyone detect my setup error? Why does Postfix fail to recognize Mailmain's accounts? (Again, Postfix handles its own virtual mail functions just fine. Also, I use "realdomain.com" for both my email host and web host addresses. Apache is configured to handle the "www." part.) --Richard Austin, Texas

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A little help with Mailman?
by Brian Fahrlander 24 Apr '06

24 Apr '06

Mailman is a well-made product; it's slick, simple, reliable, everything you'd want from a mailing list but one: a clearness of documentation. I've installed it three times, and I swear I don't know how I did it. Sendmail, on the other hand, when you've installed it, you *know* how you did it, ya know? That's what's making things hard for us, over here. The OS is Fedora Core 4 (Ubuntu's RAID-setup isn't easy, yet) and we're running the most recent RPM available, mailman-2.1.5-35.fc4. A server was running this for several years- long enough to start to worry about the reliability of the disk drives, and long enough for subsequent admins to make some mistakes that turned a bit messy. So we take the old drive, set it for IDE secondary-master, put in a new drive, and mounted the old drive, Read-only, as /archive until we're completely transitioned. And ya know- I coulda *sworn* the actual list of subscribers was in a text file, but it isn't. Key questions: 1. What, explicitly, do I copy from the archive to get the lists back, and what steps do I take to make them work? Simply copying the files that seem right, don't work at all. I suspect the binary to check the configuration will be involved, but the docs are driving me up a tree. 2. Am I doing this right? Usually when you spend a couple of days Googling for a project and turn up nothing, it means I'm doing something wrong... -- Don't be fooled by lovesongs and lonely hearts...you're living in a Twilight World. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Brian Fahrländer Christian, Conservative, and Technomad Evansville, IN http://Fahrlander.net/brian ICQ: 5119262 AOL/Yahoo/GoogleTalk: WheelDweller ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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LDAP-based reg & "one-page" subscription selection?
by Matt England 24 Apr '06

24 Apr '06

The questions: Do any Mailman-to-LDAP "connectors" exist? Do any single-view-for-all-subscriptions software packages exist for Mailman? The background details: My collaboration site plans to offer several Mailman lists in addition to its existing applications (MediaWiki, phpBB, Subversion, and more to come). We use a single/common account-registration capability across all these existing apps using an LDAP-based user-accounting mechanism. We would to bring Mailman into this LDAP-based registration scheme. Further, we would like to have a "Mailman email-list subscription overview" page in which we allow the LDAP-registered-and-signed-on user to be able so simply select in one page view--probably with a list of email lists presented to them with checkboxes next to each list allowing the user to mark a list as "subscribed" or "unsubscribed." We are looking for software packages that have already solved this problem. Does anyone know of any? We haven't found any--although our search has not been exhaustive. Some simple googles haven't found anything, nor has <http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py> produced anything for "ldap" or "single subscription" or "subscription page". We were considering rolling our own stuff, but I thought I'd ask here before proceeding. An aside: we don't have single-sign-on capability on our site yet, but that will be coming shortly, too. Right now the user has to sign on with each app. Another aside: We have been working with a similar "internal" collaboration site with several functional and popular Mailman lists, but this sight had no integrated registration or login--each app, including Mailman, had a different account namespace. We have now fired up a "public" collaboration site (our project has open-sourced) to replace a part of this internal-site's activity, and we don't want the user experience to be as fractured on our public site as our private/internal site. -Matt

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