Mailman 3 April 2010 - Mailman-Users

The Dreaded Group Mismatch Error
by LuKreme April 26, 2010

April 26, 2010

I tried to send a message to a low-traffic announce-list which failed: Mailman mail-wrapper: Group mismatch error. Mailman expected the mail wrapper script to be executed as group "mailman", but the system's mail server executed the mail script as group "nobody". Try tweaking the mail server to run the script as group "mailman", or re-run configure, providing the command line option `--with-mail-gid=nobody'. So I go to the /usr/ports/mail/mailman/ directory to build mailman 'by hand' so to speak: $ export MM_USERNAME=nobody $ export MM_GROUPNAME=nobody $ export MM_USERID=65534 $ make install ===> Installing for mailman-2.1.12 ===> mailman-2.1.12 depends on file: /usr/local/bin/python2.5 - found ---> Starting install script: ---> Using existing group "nobody" ---> Using existing user "nobody" ---> Using existing Mailman directory (/usr/local/mailman) (There may be existing active mailing lists - this installation will attempt to preserve them.) ===> Generating temporary packing list etc etc $ /usr/local/etc/rc.d/mailman start $ Try to send another message, and I get the exact same error. Apr 24 09:26:44 mail Mailman mail-wrapper: Group mismatch error. Mailman expected the mail wrapper script to be executed as group "mailman", but the system's mail server executed the mail script as group "nobody". Try tweaking the mail server to run the script as group "mailman", or re-run configure, providing the command line option `--with-mail-gid=nobody'. Now /etc/postfix/aliases.db (where all the aliases for mailman have been since at least 2004) is owned by root, and man 8 local says: When those files are owned by the superuser, delivery is made with the rights specified with the default_privs configuration parameter. and the default for default_privs is nobody, which is what postfix is doing. So, if mailman is built as above using group and user nobody why is it claiming it expected the wrapper to be run as mailman? As far as I can tell, postfix is doing what it is supposed to, but mailman somewhere has a user mailman in it that it thinks should be being used. Where this is and why I cannot figure out. All the mailman processes are running as 'nobody' So, I went and grabbed the source and read up on <http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-install/node7.html> ~/src/mailman-2.1.13 $ ./configure --with-username=nobody --with-mail-gid=nobody --with-group-name=nobody configure: WARNING: you should use --build, --host, --target checking for --with-python... no checking for python... /usr/local/bin/python checking Python interpreter... /usr/local/bin/python checking Python version... 2.5.5 checking Python's email package... ok checking Japanese codecs... ok checking Korean codecs... ok checking that Python has a working distutils... yes checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes checking for true... /usr/bin/true checking for --without-gcc... no checking for gcc... gcc checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out checking whether the C compiler works... yes checking whether we are cross compiling... no checking for suffix of executables... checking for suffix of object files... o checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... none needed checking whether #! works in shell scripts... yes checking for --with-var-prefix... no checking for --with-permcheck... yes checking for --with-username... mailman checking for user name "mailman"... okay checking for --with-groupname... mailman checking for group name "mailman"... okay ... it completely ignores the flags (this is 2.1.13 downloaded a today from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mailman/mailman-2.1.13.tgz ). and even if you try to make at that point, there is no Makefile so, now what? What portion of mailman is expecting a gid of mailman? Since mailman seems to be totally insistent on running as mailman, I wen ahead and split the aliases out into a separate file and gave them the right permissions $ chown mailman /usr/local/mailman/data/aliases.db In the manual it say: Run the bin/genaliases script to initialize your aliases file. % cd /usr/local/mailman % bin/genaliases Make sure that the owner of the data/aliases and data/aliases.db file is mailman, that the group owner for those files is mailman, or whatever user and group you used in the configure command, and that both files are group writable: However, when I run bin/genaliases I get: To finish creating your mailing list, you must edit your /etc/aliases (or equivalent) file by adding the following lines, and possibly running the `newaliases' program: followed by a list of all the aliases. There are no files in data/ named anything like alias /usr/local/mailman $ ls -ls data/ total 20 2 -rw-r----- 1 root nobody 41 May 30 2009 adm.pw 2 -rw-r--r-- 1 root nobody 10 Apr 24 10:30 last_mailman_version 2 -rw-rw---- 1 nobody nobody 6 Apr 24 10:36 master-qrunner.pid 14 -rw-r--r-- 1 root nobody 14100 Apr 24 10:32 sitelist.cfg But I created one, ran postalias on it, changed the permissions as noted above, and it STILL fails with the same error. -- Anybody who tells me what happens to me after I'm dead is either a liar or a fool because they DON'T KNOW --Stephen Fry

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Re: [Mailman-Users] Problem with inappropriate breaks in messages
by Chris Malme April 24, 2010

April 24, 2010

Based on the comments received here, I have gone back and had another look at this, and discovered I was wrong on a number of important issues. Apologies for this, but I am (obviously) new to Mailman, and didn't completely realise what I was seeing, the first time. This time, having looked at the actual mbox file held in the Archive folder, I can see that incidents of "\nFrom " in the message body of new messages have been received correctly escaped by a ">"; and the mbox file clearly has them marked as >From_ lines. So that is all good. However, the Pipermail Archive does consistently split messages whenever a message-body "\nFrom " occurs, as I described earlier, with the second part being attributed to "bogus(a)does.not.exist.com". I've found that if I then run arch on the list (using the mbox file) the Archive is created correctly, without this splitting, although any subsequent messages with a message-body "\nFrom " cause further split messages. So it looks like my problem is with the dynamic creation of the Pipermail Archive, rather than the generation from the mbox file. I haven't yet pinned down what script/process is responsible for this. This suggests a perfectly acceptable "quick fix" of a daily cron job running Arch on the list, but I will look into this further when I get time. Many thanks for your help, which pointed me in the right direction. Chris

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Mailman port
by Peter Clark April 22, 2010

April 22, 2010

Hello, I tried to install the mailman port (FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE-p2 amd64) this morning and it bombs out during the install phase: <snip> Compiling /usr/local/mailman/Mailman/TopicMgr.py ... Compiling /usr/local/mailman/Mailman/UserDesc.py ... Compiling /usr/local/mailman/Mailman/Utils.py ... Compiling /usr/local/mailman/Mailman/Version.py ... Compiling /usr/local/mailman/Mailman/__init__.py ... Compiling /usr/local/mailman/Mailman/htmlformat.py ... Compiling /usr/local/mailman/Mailman/i18n.py ... Compiling /usr/local/mailman/Mailman/versions.py ... *** Signal 11 Stop in /usr/ports/mail/mailman/work/mailman-2.1.12. *** Error code 1 Stop in /usr/ports/mail/mailman. *** Error code 1 Stop in /usr/ports/mail/mailman. </snip> the only corresponding thing I see in the logs is: Apr 22 11:18:51 greed kernel: pid 38872 (python2.6), uid 0: exited on signal 11 (core dumped) Any thoughts on what to look at to correct this? Thank you, Peter

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Mailman Problem: Some URLs are wrong
by Ralf Hildebrandt April 22, 2010

April 22, 2010

Today I created a new list, and all over a sudden, some (not all!) links are wrong. E.g. the archive link on the admin page points to http://charite.de/mailman/private/gyn-online-tumorkonferenz/ instead of http://mailman.charite.de/mailman/private/gyn-online-tumorkonferenz/ Same for the held message: http://charite.de/mailman/admindb/gyn-online-tumorkonferenz?sender=dza%40al… instead of http://mailman.charite.de/mailman/admindb/gyn-online-tumorkonferenz?sender=… Why is that? There were NO mailman updates or changes at all... Which setting (global or list specific) is responsible for these? -- Ralf Hildebrandt Geschäftsbereich IT | Abteilung Netzwerk Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin Campus Benjamin Franklin Hindenburgdamm 30 | D-12203 Berlin Tel. +49 30 450 570 155 | Fax: +49 30 450 570 962 ralf.hildebrandt(a)charite.de | http://www.charite.de

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List all users on one page
by Brian Luria April 21, 2010

April 21, 2010

Is there a way to force all users to be listed on one page, versus having to click through the alphabetical letters? -- Brian J. Luria DVM, DACVIM Bluepearl Veterinary Partners Florida Veterinary Specialists Tampa: (813) 933-8944 Clearwater: (727) 572-0132 Brandon: (813) 571-3303 www.bluepearlvet.com

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Re: [Mailman-Users] cleaning up config.pck
by Mike Cherry April 21, 2010

April 21, 2010

Mark, Of course you were right the size of my config.pck was not because of the bounce information. The with script did remove some old bounce info but not much. In looking at the dumpdb txt I see the issue is with the hold_and_cmd_autoresponses. The size of the file does not correlate with the number of subscribers rather the amount of spam the list recieves. list 1; config.pck size 16M, 1.2M hold_and_cmd_autoresponses addresses, 113 subscribers list 2; config.pck size 13M, 1.0M hold_and_cmd_autoresponses addresses, 584 subscribers list 3; config.pck size 1.1M, 80K hold_and_cmd_autoresponses addresses, 62 subscribers I'm assuming that 1.2 million addresses in hold_and_cmd_autoresponses might be keeping the file large? I am assuming that my problem is with the size of the file as lists with smaller config.pck files release locks quicker and the web admin interface starts much much faster. In Defaults.pk I have MAX_AUTORESPONSES_PER_DAY = 10. -Mike

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Re: [Mailman-Users] Problem with inappropriate breaks in messages
by b19141＠anl.gov April 21, 2010

April 21, 2010

Mark Sapiro wrote: >That said, I suspect the underlying OS here is Debian/Ubuntu and >Mailman is the Debian/Ubuntu package which has patches in this area >which are causing this. As I have written on this forum before, the Debian/Ubuntu package for Mailman has a large number of patches. One I know is definitely wrong. Most of the others had no documentation, so I could not determine what the patch was doing. For three security patches, two matched the SourceForge source, and one did not. As I could not determine exactly what I would be running, I decided to build my own Mailman package from the SourceForge source. The only patch I kept was one that places file in proper libraries for Ubuntu/Debian. I can provide details for anyone who is interested. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 240, Room 5.B.8 Internet: BSFinkel(a)anl.gov Argonne, IL 60439-4828 IBMMAIL: I1004994

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Problem with inappropriate breaks in messages
by Chris Malme April 21, 2010

April 21, 2010

Hi all, Newbie here. I have recently moved a list over to Mailman running under Plesk on a VPS. The version of Mailman that I currently have access to is 2.1.9. I had a mbox file to import from my old mail-list system. Originally, I had some problems - the mbox file was large (7 years of archives) and some messages had a literal "\nFrom ", which cause the archiver to break the messages inappropriately. For the moment, I escaped these incidents with a >, although that now means that ">From " appears in the archive, but I thought it was better than having a corrupted archive, and I could rebuild at a later date when I fully understood how Mailman copes with this. However, I have very quickly discovered that if a post to the list contains - in the actual message text - a newline (a single newline, not a double) followed by the word From, Mailman interprets that as a new message and breaks the message at that point, creating a fragment message with no subject line. Note that this is not just the archive - this actually affects messages being sent to the subscribers - i.e. a message containing a newline followed by "From " will be split in two before going out. This really surprised me, as it is not at all unlikely that sometime or other someone will post "From " at the start of a line! Is this a known bug (I did search, and couldn't spot anything), and is it fixed in other versions? Or do I have a rogue version of Mailman installed on my VPS? The behaviour is consistent and repeatable. Regards Chris

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cleaning up config.pck
by Mike Cherry April 21, 2010

April 21, 2010

Is there a utility / script that will allow me to clean up very large config.pck files? I have a couple lists that receive huge amounts of spam. My problem is the saved bounced information is never removed. I've got a couple config.pck files that are >15M. The size of these files is slowing down the delivery of message as it needs to be read over and over as messages are processed. -Mike

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FW: Welcome to the "Mailman-Users" mailing list (Digest mode)
by Govila, Prateek April 21, 2010

April 21, 2010

mailman version 2.1.11. I have created a mailing list "prat" I am able to send a mail to to prat(a)domainname.com but not able to send mail to prat-request(a)domain.com. please suggest. ________________________________ From: mailman-users-bounces+prateek.govila=bluecoat.com(a)python.org on behalf of mailman-users-request(a)python.org Sent: Tue 4/20/2010 8:47 AM To: Govila, Prateek Subject: Welcome to the "Mailman-Users" mailing list (Digest mode) Welcome to the Mailman-Users(a)python.org mailing list! Don't forget to check out the Mailman FAQ Wiki at: http://wiki.list.org/display/DOC/Frequently+Asked+Questions and the searchable archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Posts from new subscribers will go through a human moderation process for the first few posts. Once you demonstrate that you are a real human being, you have read and understood the instructions, and are not just trying to spam the list, your moderation bit should be cleared. Also note that all posts made to the list will be publicly archived. In order to protect the integrity of the list archives, we do not routinely agree to remove or obscure posts that are in the archives. We only do this in exceptional circumstances such as if someone has posted personal/private information about someone else, or an obviously private e-mail has accidentally been posted to the list. The Mailman Security Policy is detailed in FAQ 1.27 at <http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9>. Before posting any messages to this mailing list, please make sure that you have read and understood this policy. To post to this list, send your email to: mailman-users(a)python.org General information about the mailing list is at: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users If you ever want to unsubscribe or change your options (eg, switch to or from digest mode, change your password, etc.), visit your subscription page at: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/prateek.govila%40bluec… You can also make such adjustments via email by sending a message to: Mailman-Users-request(a)python.org with the word `help' in the subject or body (don't include the quotes), and you will get back a message with instructions. You must know your password to change your options (including changing the password, itself) or to unsubscribe. It is: prateek123 Normally, Mailman will remind you of your python.org mailing list passwords once every month, although you can disable this if you prefer. This reminder will also include instructions on how to unsubscribe or change your account options. There is also a button on your options page that will email your current password to you.

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