Mailman 3 June 2008 - Mailman-Users

server load..
by Khalil Abbas June 4, 2008

June 4, 2008

hi guys, I posted this message a couple of days ago but didn't get any satisfying answers.. neither did I find a good answer in the Faq cause it's too "technical" .. so here's my message again: hi mailman guys .. my question is, I have a 100,000+ subscribers mailing list, and hosting it with godaddy.com (Celeron 2000, 2 GBs RAM) .. but they only allow 100,000 emails per day for each dedicated server, so I have to buy a new server now, and it's a bit expensive.. I found another cheap service, $30/month dedicated servers and they offer unlimited emails per day.. but its characteristics are a bit low: AMD, 512 MB RAM .. my question is, will mailman with such a huge list which is also rapidly growing work on such server? knowing that I only send 1 email newsletter a day to the list and none of the users can send to the list but me.. another question, is it easy to install mailman manually? cause in godaddy's control panel it's ready to install with 1 click.. but with the new cheap service I have to install it myself.. and is there a ready-to-install script that does everything automatically like that in the control panels? Thanks for everything mates .. _________________________________________________________________ Give to a good cause with every e-mail. Join the i’m Initiative from Microsoft. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Join/Default.aspx?souce=EML_WL_ GoodCause

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ETA for MM 3.0?
by Jon Slater June 4, 2008

June 4, 2008

Does anyone have a guess-timate for the MM 3.0 release?

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Virtual hosts and re-using list names
by Jon Slater June 4, 2008

June 4, 2008

Hi, Is there a way to re-use list names for multiple virtual hosts without running multiple instances of MM? For example: members(a)mylist.com and members(a)yourlist.com on the same server? So far, the only solution I've found it to be cleaver with my list names (like members(a)mylist.com and everyone(a)yourlist.com. Thanks!

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default language per virtual host
by R. Hirschfeld June 4, 2008

June 4, 2008

Is it possible to configure the language used for the listinfo and admin overviews on a per-virtual-host basis? Or failing that, to let the user select a language in which to view these overview pages, as can be done for the listinfo and admin pages of a specific list? In my case the overviews should be in English for some virtual hosts and Dutch for others. Funnily enough, before a recent "unintentional upgrade" to version 2.1.9 of Mailman (a disk crash after which the sysadmin installed a new version of the OS) this seemed to Just Work, with the language of the overview matching the preferred language of the virtual host's lists. But from a cursory look at Mailman/Cgi/listinfo.py and admin.py I don't see how that could be, so I may be misremembering. Now the overviews are all in English (the DEFAULT_SERVER_LANGUAGE). Thanks for any help, Ray Hirschfeld

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mailman error after server crash
by Carlos Bergero June 4, 2008

June 4, 2008

Hi there, a few weeks ago my mail server crashed and serveral files where damage, and placed in lost+found. For some reason the mailman system failed after that while starting the service i got the following error. Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/sbin/list_lists", line 122, in ? main() File "/usr/sbin/list_lists", line 94, in main mlist = MailList.MailList(n, lock=0) File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 130, in __init__ self.Load() File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 665, in Load self.CheckVersion(dict) File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 704, in CheckVersion if self.data_version >= mm_cfg.DATA_FILE_VERSION: File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 146, in __getattr__ raise AttributeError, name AttributeError: data_version After checking back and forth I found that removing the list_lists from the /etc/init.d/mailman let the service start but one or more lists are not working, and of course the error persist, I cant also access the web page of the list. Can you give me some advice on what can be wrong. So far I cant make out which file is missing or has something wrong. Something similar happends when I run check_db (broken_list) only the lines refering to list_lists change and are replace by check_db instead. Is there a way to recover from this or to reset the list without erasing it? Thx, Carlos Bergero

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Re: [Mailman-Users] 2.1.10 patch release, was: Subscription errors
by Mark Sapiro June 4, 2008

June 4, 2008

Duncan Drury wrote: > >Any chance of releasing a patched version of mailman as promised a while >back? Not everyone using Mailman will be up to patching or manually editing >the code, and like a I said - for me at least this bug was a showstopper - >and a nasty one because it was pretty silent. Had I not been setting up a >new list, I may not have realised there was a problem for many months during >which no new subscriptions would have been happening on my lists. The issue of a 2.1.10 patch release has become a bit complicated. There are a few other minor changes, and a new cron I have implemented to cull old entries from the bad and shunt queues. This goes a bit beyond a patch release. I have just returned from a vacation and am still trying to catch up, but my plan is to release what may be thought of as a 2.1.10 patch release, but to call it 2.1.11. This should happen before the end of this month. Regarding 'silent' problems - consider running Brad Knowles' daily status report (mmdsr). You will find this in the contrib directory in the unpacked tarball. It will report errors like this. -- Mark Sapiro <mark(a)msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan

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Major problems with privacy and mailman lists and harvesters
by Steve Murphy June 4, 2008

June 4, 2008

Hello! I'm quite concerned about what I'm seeing in mailman installations, and the amount of spam I've been getting because I participate in mailman based lists! I'm not talking about halting spam that gets submitted to the list for mailing. I'm not talking about spambots automatically joining the lists and submitting spam. What I'm concerned about is the fact that email harvesters are being given so much information. I've noticed in the mailman-users archives, that if I view info by thread (using the mailman archives as an example,) which site is 2.1.10 based, that all email addresses are present, but with a simple obfuscation. (the "@" has been changed to " at ".) I can't help but to think that this simple obfuscation is a joke. Any harvester written in the past number of years would be smart enough to capture such accurately. When viewing the developer's archives, I note that when a message is displayed singly, it is common to see [EMAIL PROTECTED]. This is much nicer, but I notice that in both archives, a button is provided at the bottom of the letter, that submits a form, and gets back both a "Found" page, with a mailto: url, and a redirect to a mailto... so, an anonymous user can easily get/harvest email addresses by simply analyzing the html form. The gzip'd archives by month for both lists both show all email addresses, with the " at " obfuscation. It seems inconsistent, funny even, that display by thread will show individual messages with [EMAIL REMOVED], but the gzip'd archives of the same message reveal, really, everything. And worse... If I really wanted to collect up-to-date juicy email addresses, I'd simply subscribe to all the mailman lists I possibly could, and route all the incoming messages to harvesters. In **This** case, the harvest is bountiful, as most messages arrive totally unfiltered, from headers galore bearing bounteous harvests of email addresses (for example, the From header), to the user sigs at the ends, with reply quotation headers mentioning the source addresses in between. Within MINUTES of my first posting on asterisk-users, I was getting spam on an email address that was brand-new. Since then, the spam volume on that email addr just keeps growing. I keep wondering, which way did they get my email addr? But, it doesn't matter. I can't help to think that 'targeted' spam mailers both spider the archives and subscribe to the lists.The bigger the list's subscription, hotter an item it is. So, please, can we apply the [EMAIL PROTECTED] tech to the archives, and the outgoing messages, and drop this silly notion that the " at " obfuscation is useful? Really, it's totally transparent. NO OBFUSCATION is safe in mailman. There's simply too much Can we drop the buttons from the archives whose HTML says: <FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="/cgi-bin/Nomailto.pl"> <INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="user" VALUE="barb"> <INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="host" VALUE="nleaudiox.com"> <INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="subject" VALUE="Re: [Mailman-Developers] Important Mailman 2.1.9 to 2.1.10 upgrade note."> <INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="msgid" VALUE="480E15F1.50200(a)nleaudio.com"> Reply via email to<br> <INPUT TYPE="SUBMIT" VALUE=" Bob [EMAIL PROTECTED] "> </FORM> from which spam harvesters can almost instantly be updated to harvest "barb(a)nleaudiox.com" (modified from the orig to save the innocent author from a deluge of spam, at least on **my** account), without even submitting the form! We need to rethink how we can adequately keep emails out of spammers hands. And, yes, it's kinda unhandy not read a message and not be able to fire an email off to the author directly. But to make it easy for list subscribers, is to make it easy for spammers, who probably have already joined the list, and are delighted to get email addresses, any which way they can. Most discussion on mailing lists do not require any address other than the the mailing list itself. To take a discussion "offline", I propose a few ideas: 1. the mailing list allows the users to specify a phone-number, an irc channel and identity that they can be reached by, or some other method to contact the author, that is NOT an email address. This info is kept private, and the button at the bottom of the archived letters could give you this info. The person wanting to privately discuss the letter could then call the user or contact them via irc/jabber/whatever, and either discuss the matter there and then, or the author could voluntarily give the other party his email address at that time. Or file a list message, and ask the author to contact him, and give out a phone number, whatever. I thought about integrating spamgourmet throw-away email addresses, but really, that wouldn't help. Spammers could simply request, get the throw-away, spam it, and toss it. The user himself is the only one who can usefully hand out throw-away addresses. If you think mailman doesn't have to worry about this sort of thing, keep in mind that mailman has swiftly become probably the top mailing list software on the web. That spammers would not be interested in mining mailing lists for their tens of thousands of valid addresses is foolhardy thinking. That thinking the options that mailman provides now is adequate to keep spammers from harvesting email addrs, is just plain wrong. That datamining and de-obfuscation are NOT being done specifically for mailman lists is wishful thinking. Mailman needs to pay attention to the fact that spammers would **love** to use their mailing list installations to ship spam for them, AND ALSO that spammers will want to harvest email addresses from the web interface AND the mailings themselves. We need to lock down mailman, or at least make it an option! Simply put, in messages sent to users, the only email that should be found anywhere in a recieved message, is the recipient's. In the archived messages, absolutely no email addresses at all. Not even obfuscated. If we follow this pattern, the spammers will not be able to use mailman lists for any useful purpose. They'll have to hack the web sites to get the lists. murf -- Steve Murphy Software Developer Digium

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Re: [Mailman-Users] Mailing list with no archive
by Laura Creighton June 3, 2008

June 3, 2008

In a message of Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:38:36 PDT, Mark Sapiro writes: >Laura Creighton wrote: >> >> A mailing list that I am subscribed to, for reasons of privacy, has dec >ided >> to not archive its messages. I think this is an extremely silly idea, >but >> right now out of my control. My problem is that periodically I think I >> remember something useful having been posted there, and want to search >the >> non-existant archives -- because I forget they do not exist. >> >> The first erroneous piece of information I get is 'this archive is only >> searchable by list members'. So I try to log in to read the list, and >> despite typing my correct password, things fail with 'Authorization >> Failed' rather than letting me discover that there were no archives to >> be found. So you assume you haven't reset your password for this maili >ng >> list to one of the several you are in the habit of using, and ask for >> a password reminder -- to find out that all of this has been a complete >> waste of time because your problem is that there is no archive, not >> that you mistyped your password. >> >> So -- is this just a bug -- should I report it -- or is this list >> misconfigured? I can ask the list maintainer to change things if there >> is a way we can avoid this. > > >I can't duplicate this problem. What Mailman version hosts this list? >Are you sure you are logging in with the exact email address that is >subscribed to the list? Mailman version 2.1.9, and yes the email address is the same. Laura > >-- >Mark Sapiro <mark(a)msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, >San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan

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Mailing list with no archive
by Laura Creighton June 3, 2008

June 3, 2008

A mailing list that I am subscribed to, for reasons of privacy, has decided to not archive its messages. I think this is an extremely silly idea, but right now out of my control. My problem is that periodically I think I remember something useful having been posted there, and want to search the non-existant archives -- because I forget they do not exist. The first erroneous piece of information I get is 'this archive is only searchable by list members'. So I try to log in to read the list, and despite typing my correct password, things fail with 'Authorization Failed' rather than letting me discover that there were no archives to be found. So you assume you haven't reset your password for this mailing list to one of the several you are in the habit of using, and ask for a password reminder -- to find out that all of this has been a complete waste of time because your problem is that there is no archive, not that you mistyped your password. So -- is this just a bug -- should I report it -- or is this list misconfigured? I can ask the list maintainer to change things if there is a way we can avoid this. Thanks very much, Laura Creighton

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re-install postfix?
by Dov Oxenberg June 3, 2008

June 3, 2008

Good morning, Until Wednesday night my Server was running like a champ then suddenly, mysteriously, Postfix broke for no apparent reason. It is failing to start reporting "no local interface found for..." and citing some IP address which is invalid for my system. I have not been able to get anywhere since Wednesday night and am now considering uninstalling Postfix and then reinstalling. I realize this is a Postfix issue, but I wanted to ask what are the consequences of uninstalling Postfix, then reinstalling as it relates to Mailman - do I need to do anything with my existing Mailman installation, will I need to reinstall, etc. Thanks! Dov

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