Mailman 3 December 2007 - Mailman-Users

Variables in welcome message are not replaced
by Stefan Burkard Jan. 7, 2008

Jan. 7, 2008

Hi all I set up a mailman mailinglist (everything preinstalled on a plesk-based hosting) and have a strange effect. When I subscribe a user from my address by using the email-command with the optional "address=<user-address>", the user receives the confirmation-message without problems. BUT if the user replies to the message (to confirm), he gets a welcome-message with the variable-codes instead of the real values. When the user himself does the same procedure (obviously without the address= option, that is not needed in this case), the welcome-message looks just fine. I tried the same with the mailman-users-list itself and it worked, so I think this is not a bug - at least not in the actual version. I am using version 2.1.5. Can anybody help me with this one? Regards Stefan

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no dupes across lists?
by Gruver, Sandi Jan. 3, 2008

Jan. 3, 2008

Does the 'no dupes' option mean that members will not receive a messages sent to more than one list to which they are subscribed? Thank you, S Gruver Unix system administrator Center for Information Services Bellevue, WA 98004 phone 425.803.9753 fax 425.803.9652

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check_perms question
by John Fleming Jan. 2, 2008

Jan. 2, 2008

Running 2.1.9 on Debian etch (stable), lists working fine except qrunner silently dies and noone notices until someone realizes they haven't seen any mail lately. Currently worked around with cron job restarting Mailman. Googling around, some have suggested this might be related to permissions...? Whether my perms are related to the above problem or not, I apparently do have some permissions problems as shown by running check_perms. There were initially 70-some problems, most if not all of which were related to group being root instead of list. I ran check_perms -f (as root) and many, but not all, were fixed. Now there are 17 that still show having the same problem - group root not list - and I can't seem to fix it. Even using WinSCP and trying to change the group ownership with that instead of check_perms -f does not give lasting results. IOW, I can't seem to change the permissions! I'm not a Linux expert, obvious from the above... Any suggestions? Would CHMOD from a server terminal be any different? Any other comments? I've checked the FAQ, but I don't see the problem there (or don't recognize it). Thanks! Running Mailman since 2.1.5 with essentially no problems until I upgraded Debian from sarge to etch and Mailman from 2.1.5 to 2.1.9. Thanks! - John

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Message Excerpt
by Cyndi Norwitz Jan. 2, 2008

Jan. 2, 2008

Okay, I searched the FAQ and found nothing even remotely related. And I got a list from my ISP of all the changes they've made to the standard install and it's not among them. When a message comes through for moderation I can click on it and then I get the full header and the "Message Excerpt." The problem is that it truncates (hense the "excerpt"). With spam, I don't care, because I'm obviously going to reject it. But I have several listmembers who are on permanant moderation because they don't understand what a copyright is and they try to post entire articles. Or they cut and paste a long web page (not from their own site). Or they quote entire digests. Stuff like that. I can't always tell from the Message Excerpt if that is happening and I've made mistakes. So I have to go into my email and look for the notification of the moderation request. The full text of the attempted post is in there. It's a pain though, and I don't plan to always have immediate notification turned on. I would really like to be able to see the full text in that window. Or to be able to click on a link that shows it to me. At the very least, something that tells me how many lines are in the email would be great. On the summary page it says the number of bytes. But that doesn't help that much because it depends on the density of the lines (and it's hard to remember what bytes mean in terms of post length). Plus that information is not on the detail page! I have to go back and forth to see it. Is there anything I can do? Is there anything my ISP can do? Is this a new feature request? Thanks, Cyndi

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HowTo Notes - Mailman and Sendmail Integration
by Tony Lembke Dec. 31, 2007

Dec. 31, 2007

I've recently spent a fair deal of time integrating mailman with sendmail to automate the creation of alias files. A number of postings to this list were helpful. It's all working now, so I thought my notes may be helpful to speed things up for someone else. I apologise if there are any mistakes or false steps. Thanks to the Mailman developers and Ed Greenberg To be read in conjunction with the mailman installation instructions at <http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-install/index.htm> and the post by Ed Greenberg at <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2004-June/037518.html> ------------- Step 1 I'm using Apache2, Mailman 2.19 and FreeBSD4 and Python 2.4 ------------- Step 2 As root #adduser I used -> user: mailman, group:mailman, password: n ------------- Step 3 create Installation Directory (as root) su# cd /usr/local/ su# mkdir mailman su# chown mailman mailman su# su mailman su# cd mailman su# chgrp mailnull . su# chmod a+rx,g+ws . ------------- Step 4 Now, go to the directory where you have downloaded mailman su# cd /usr/home/xxxxx/mailman-2.1.9 Change back to user root su# su root You can ascertain the correct option for --with-mail-gid from /etc/ mail/sendmail.cf su# grep "DefaultUser" /etc/mail/sendmail.cf => #O DefaultUser=mailnull So use mailnull su# su root su# make clean su# configure --with-mail-gid=mailnull I'm on FreeBSD so use this command su# make DIRSETGID=: install Now check permissions su# cd /usr/local/mailman su# bin/check_perms -f My webserver runs as nobody (check httpd.conf on your system to confirm) su# grep "User " /usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf => User nobody su# cd archives su# chown nobody private su# chmod o-x private ------------- Step 5 Add this to your httpd-vhosts.conf, or httpd.conf depending on which version of Apache you are using <VirtualHost *:80> ServerName lists.practiceimprovement.com.au TransferLog /dev/null DocumentRoot /usr/home/lists/htdocs/ ScriptAlias /mailman/ /usr/local/mailman/cgi-bin/ Alias /pipermail/ /usr/local/mailman/archives/public/ </VirtualHost> and restart apache ------------- Step 6 Integrating sendmail and mailman mm-handler would not work for me (after considerable amount of time trying) - I think because by server was medicine.net.au and the address I wanted to use was practiceimprovement.org.au, even though practiceimprovement.org.au was correctly set up on dns to be delegated to the right server. So I used Ed Greenberg's approach at <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2004-June/037518.html> which seems better to me. Note: On Freebsd I first had to build sudo! create the file /usr/sbin/mailman.aliases c su# pico /usr/bin/mailman.aliases containing the lines below => /bin/cp /usr/local/mailman/data/aliases /etc/mail/mailman.aliases /usr/bin/newaliases Note: I spent a lot of time bugtesting as I used 'cp' in the mailman.aliases script rather than /usr/cp (it worked from the command line but not the web interface) make it executable su# chmod 755 /usr/sbin/mailman.aliases Change your sendmail.cf file to include the new alias file (for me, add this to medicine.net.au.mc) define(`ALIAS_FILE', `/etc/mail/aliases,/etc/mail/mailman.aliases') (and then as root) su# /etc/mail/make install restart Update your sudoers file ('nobody' is the user apache runs under - check your httpd.conf) su# visudo add=> nobody ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/local/sbin/mailman.aliases mailman ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/local/sbin/mailman.aliases ------------- Step 7 my mm_cfg.py has these added DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST = 'practiceimprovement.com.au' DEFAULT_URL_HOST = 'lists.practiceimprovement.com.au' DEFAULT_URL_PATTERN = 'http://%s/mailman/' add_virtualhost(DEFAULT_URL_HOST, DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST) IMAGE_LOGOS = '/images/' MTA='Postfix' POSTFIX_ALIAS_CMD = '/usr/local/bin/sudo /usr/local/sbin/ mailman.aliases' POSTFIX_STYLE_VIRTUAL_DOMAINS = [] Follow the rest of the instructions from step 7 on at -> <http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-install/index.html> ----------------- Testing When you create a list using /bin/newlist, you should find that the file /etc/mail/mailman.aliases has been created / updated. (I had some permissions to sort out in a few directories before it all worked smoothly) The error log is helpful at /usr/local/mailman/logs/error These commands can be helpful for troubleshooting, after you have successfully created a testlist and subscribed yourself to that list To test mailman su# echo "From: tony(a)pi.com.au To: testlist(a)pi.com.au Subject: Happy New Year test mail body " | /usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman post testlist If that works, use this to test your sendmail/mailman integration su# echo "From: tony(a)pi.com.au To: testlist(a)pi.com.au Subject: Merry Xmas test mail body " | /bin/sendmail -tony(a)pi.com.au testlist(a)pi.com.au Hope this helps someone and would welcome corrections or improvements. Happy New Year, Tony Lembke

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Restoring Lists
by Dennis Putnam Dec. 31, 2007

Dec. 31, 2007

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I had a disk failure and had to restore my Mandriva system from backup. Everything seems to work except Mailman. Well, mailman works but it does not recognize any of my old lists. How do I get Mailman to see the lists again? TIA. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32) iD8DBQFHeWGB/fiWYqZ2tVQRAvE+AJ9eBhtqYK7Jwg3oIdb/EyF5j5ERZACgvfyh 6J2L47K02sEJ/NHazJhVOwk= =puOi -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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attachments in every message
by Sarah Dec. 30, 2007

Dec. 30, 2007

Hello. I run a mail man list and almost every message has an attachment on it. Now there is no attachment when you look at the message but it appears to be the footer of the message that is invisible to OE and I notice that in thearchvies it says x attachments were scrubbed. Why is this. I notice this on other mail man lists I am a part of as well. what can I change to keep this from happening? have subscribers who are upset at me and who are leaving because of this. Thanks. SA&G

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Re: [Mailman-Users] Can't send email to non-local recipients
by Larry Zins Dec. 30, 2007

Dec. 30, 2007

OK, the command "postmap virtual" accepted the virtual map file, so this is good. However, it still does'nt work, but for a different reason. Now the maillog file shows: Relay access denied; The file LOCAL_RECIPIENT_README that came with the distribution says to set the parameter "local_recipient_maps" to the empty string to fix this problem: local_recipient_maps = But something is still wrong... Thanks, Happy Holidaze Larry On Dec 30, 2007 12:36 PM, Brad Knowles <brad(a)shub-internet.org> wrote: > On 12/29/07, Larry Zins wrote: > > > Dec 29 21:43:10 sonic postfix/trivial-rewrite[21282]: fatal: open > database > > /etc/postfix/virtual.db: No such file or directory > > You've got to create the virtual.db file first. To do this, try > "postmap virtual". Don't use postalias, because that's just used for > real local alias files, not virtual alias files. > > -- > Brad Knowles <brad(a)shub-internet.org> > LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu> >

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Can't send email to non-local recipients
by Larry Zins Dec. 30, 2007

Dec. 30, 2007

Hi, I've been trying for days now to get a test mailman list to work. When I send an email to the list "larry-test(a)mydomain.tld", only users that have an unix account on the server itself receive the email. I've searched and tried the examples in the READMEs that came with the distribution, main.cf.default, the internet, and nothing works. I've got amavisd-new working with SASL, SpamAssassin, ClamAV, and Dovecot, SquirrelMail, but I can't get Mailman to work. I'm using Postfix 2.3.3-2 and Mailman 2.1.9-2. This is the current config that does'nt work: In /etc/aliases: ## larry mailing list larry-test: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman post larry-test" larry-test-admin: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman admin larry-test" larry-test-bounces: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman bounces larry-test" 2.1.9-2 larry-test-confirm: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman confirm larry-test" larry-test-join: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman join larry-test" larry-test-leave: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman leave larry-test" larry-test-owner: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman owner larry-test" larry-test-request: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman request larry-test" larry-test-subscribe: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman subscribe larry-test" larry-test-unsubscribe: "|/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman unsubscribe larry-test" In /etc/postfix/main.cf: mydestination = $myhostname, localhost.$mydomain, localhost, mydomain.tld, fully-qualified hostname local_recipient_maps = virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual In /etc/postfix/virtual: larry-test(a)create.ucsb.edu larry-test larry-test-admin(a)create.ucsb.edu larry-test-admin larry-test-bounces(a)create.ucsb.edu larry-test-bounces larry-test-confirm(a)create.ucsb.edu larry-test-confirm larry-test-join(a)create.ucsb.edu larry-test-join larry-test-leave(a)create.ucsb.edu larry-test-leave larry-test-owner(a)create.ucsb.edu larry-test-owner larry-test-request(a)create.ucsb.edu larry-test-request larry-test-subscribe(a)create.ucsb.edu larry-test-subscribe larry-test-unsubscribe(a)create.ucsb.edu larry-test-unsubscribe And the errors: Dec 29 21:43:10 sonic postfix/trivial-rewrite[21282]: fatal: open database /etc/postfix/virtual.db: No such file or directory Dec 29 21:43:10 sonic postfix/smtpd[21281]: fatal: open database /etc/postfix/virtual.db: No such file or directory Dec 29 21:43:11 sonic postfix/master[21166]: warning: process /usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd pid 21281 exit status 1 Dec 29 21:43:11 sonic postfix/master[21166]: warning: /usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd: bad command startup -- throttling Dec 29 21:43:11 sonic postfix/master[21166]: warning: process /usr/libexec/postfix/trivial-rewrite pid 21282 exit status 1 Dec 29 21:43:11 sonic postfix/master[21166]: warning: /usr/libexec/postfix/trivial-rewrite: bad command startup -- throttling Thanks for any tips. Larry

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Web interface not responding after upgrade...
by Charles Marcus Dec. 29, 2007

Dec. 29, 2007

Ok, this is the only other thing not working after my upgrade... I am getting the following error when going to one of the admin pages: ***************** Forbidden You don't have permission to access /mailman/admin/listname/ on this server. Apache Server at myhost.mydomain.com Port 443 ***************** Obviously either a permissions issue or another path problem, but I'm not sure where to look... I don't see an 'admin' directory anywhere, though - is this the problem? Can anyone point me in the right direction? -- Best regards, Charles

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