Mailman 3 July 2010 - Mailman-Users

Where is the template for monthly password reminders?
by Michael R Boudreau 22 Jul '10

22 Jul '10

Where can I find the template for the monthly password reminder email? I'd like to modify it so that it doesn't contain the password (our members object to this being sent unbidden in plain text), and so that it reminds users to make sure their subscription address matches the address from which they currently send email (ideally with a link to their personal options page so they can update). -- Michael R. Boudreau Senior Publishing Technology Analyst The University of Chicago Press 1427 E. 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637 (773) 753-3298 fax: (773) 753-3383

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Re: [Mailman-Users] Is Mailman right for us?
by Anthony R. Thompson 22 Jul '10

22 Jul '10

On 7/21/2010 5:12 AM, Alison Epstein wrote: > We're considering using Mailman for our organization's listservs. But > I'm having trouble finding a demo to try or some screen snapshots so > that I can even determine if this is the right software for us. > > I need something for our discussion lists. (We also have announce-only > lists.) > > The discussion lists ideally would have an archive that is accessible. > > Also, some of our lists need to have the ability to have multiple > "moderators / posters" who may or may not be list subscribers. For > instance, we have staff in Jerusalem & Chicago. We have mailing lists > for each office, but all staff members can post to either list. For > example: A Jerusalem staff member can send a message that only the > Chicago staff will receive. Alison, I can say that Mailman can do what you describe (I'm sure others can too :) I just converted 71 lists (a few announcement lists and the rest discussion) from Listserv to Mailman and so far everything went smoothly. (If you're doing a similar conversion you can see some documentation I wrote on this at http://blog.anthonyrthompson.com/listserv-to-mailman/) Our biggest announcement list has about 1500 people on it and a few of our bigger discussion lists have between 500 and 1000 people on them. Yes Mailman comes with archives built in. If you want to enable searching you'll have to do that as an add on but there's documentation out there on doing that (a lot of people, my org included, use swish). I don't know if I can set up a demo for you, or if there are screen shots, but if no one else knows of anything I might be able to do some screenshots for you if you contact me offlist about what you'd want to see. ~Anthony

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Encoding Error in Mailman
by Brian Carpenter 21 Jul '10

21 Jul '10

Hi All: Hope everyone is having a nice summer. Yesterday I had a UK client have two messages from two different posters shunted for the following reason: Jul 19 05:24:03 2010 (28056) Uncaught runner exception: windows-1252 Jul 19 05:24:03 2010 (28056) Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/Mailman/Queue/Runner.py", line 120, in _oneloop self._onefile(msg, msgdata) File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/Mailman/Queue/Runner.py", line 191, in _onefile keepqueued = self._dispose(mlist, msg, msgdata) File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/Mailman/Queue/OutgoingRunner.py", line 74, in _dispose self._func(mlist, msg, msgdata) File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/Mailman/Handlers/SMTPDirect.py", line 132, in process Decorate.process(mlist, msg, msgdata) File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/Mailman/Handlers/Decorate.py", line 133, in process msg.set_payload(payload, newcset) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.4/email/Message.py", line 218, in set_payload self.set_charset(charset) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.4/email/Message.py", line 242, in set_charset raise TypeError(charset) TypeError: windows-1252 Jul 19 05:46:50 2010 (28056) Uncaught runner exception: iso-8859-1 Jul 19 05:46:50 2010 (28056) Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/Mailman/Queue/Runner.py", line 120, in _oneloop self._onefile(msg, msgdata) File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/Mailman/Queue/Runner.py", line 191, in _onefile keepqueued = self._dispose(mlist, msg, msgdata) File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/Mailman/Queue/OutgoingRunner.py", line 74, in _dispose self._func(mlist, msg, msgdata) File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/Mailman/Handlers/SMTPDirect.py", line 132, in process Decorate.process(mlist, msg, msgdata) File "/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/Mailman/Handlers/Decorate.py", line 133, in process msg.set_payload(payload, newcset) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.4/email/Message.py", line 218, in set_payload self.set_charset(charset) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.4/email/Message.py", line 242, in set_charset raise TypeError(charset) TypeError: iso-8859-1 Looking at the error log, the above type of error message is VERY rare however it is strange that I had two of these show up within a close time of each other. The question that I have is does the above error message indicate a problem going on with the mailman server or was there an issue going on with the posters' email formatting? Thanks for any insight into this problem. Regards, Brian Carpenter EMWD.com -------------------------------------------------------- http://blog.emwd.com/ Curious comments from a web hosting techie

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delivery limitation there users?
by Esteban Torres 21 Jul '10

21 Jul '10

I have configured a list of 150 members and everything works fine. Now I want to create another list with 1885 members. I have to change something in the configuration of mailman? There is some limitation in the default configuration of mailman to deliver as many members? In the configuration of postfix I have: smtpd_recipient_limit = 2700 I must be careful with anything? Thanks

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Is it possible to configure Mailman to receive/send Outlook encrypted email messages?
by Wang, Mary Y 20 Jul '10

20 Jul '10

Hi, Is it possible to configure Mailman to receive/send Outlook encrypted email messages? Thanks Mary

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Scrubbing attachments only if over size limit - Umbrella list
by Dave Nathanson 19 Jul '10

19 Jul '10

I've spent almost 2 whole days reading the MailMan FAQ, Googleing and testing theories/methods with a set of test-lists. I am using MailMan 2.1.12 installed at DreamHost.com. I do not have root access. Although I can ssh into the server, I'm not good at writing shell scripts. Sorry if this looks long or wordy, I'm trying to give enough info to get some help. What I am trying to do is allow list members to post plain text, or html messages, and attachments up to a set size. Any attachments larger than that size, I'd like to be scrubbed and a link url inserted so the list members don't have to download some stupid cat video just to unclog their mail delivery, but those who love cat videos can just click the link and get it. I understand the attachment scrubbing feature. It is useful. But it will only scrub ALL messages not just those over a certain size. And it takes out the html that people are using so much more than they used to. Ideally, I would love to have the attachment scrubbing feature operate only on messages larger than a certain size. That would solve my entire problem. One of the lists I admin includes decidedly non-technical people who think nothing of forwarding 12 mb attachments. They don't understand why this is not allowed, and I'm getting tired of explaining it again. These same people are not interested (or capable) of uploading their large attachment to a server and emailing a link to the list. So I'm trying to help them, but without relaying huge attachments to the list. So after much reading, I got the idea of using an umbrella list set to scrub attachments to give users the option of sending their huge attachments and it will auto-generate a link. Lovely. But I'm not having success in implementation. Perhaps you can help me with this. I made 2 MailMan lists: * regular_list (restricted by size less than 2 mb). Has membership. * big_list (no size restriction), set to scrub attachments. No members, should send to/from the members of the regular list. Set to be an umbrella list. THEORY: The way I expect this to work is the list member will send his huge attachment to the regular_list, it bounces back, and tells him to try sending it to the big_list instead. This ought to scrub the attachment, leaving a URL instead, and lets the msg continue to the regular_list where it will now be well under the size restriction and pass through to all the members of regular_list. Am I on track? I just want 2 lists, with the exact same membership list, one to scrub attachments, and the other to reject oversize attachments. Both should only accept postings from list members. The problem is that the regular_list is not accepting messages addressed to the big_list. I searched the list archives and found some interesting info, but maybe I've read so much that I can't see or think straight anymore. I read the articles: 3.5. What is an Umbrella list - and why doesn't it do what I want? 3.69. How do I set up an umbrella list? But I have not been successful in getting the umbrella list concept to work. What is the trick? Is this possible? Is there a better way? What needs to be typed where? Thanks, Dave

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move list to another domain
by Khalil Abbas 18 Jul '10

18 Jul '10

Hi, I have several lists on doimain1.com on the server.. I added a new account with a different domain name (Domain2) on the same server.. how can I move the lists to the new domain and delete the old one? is it simply by chaging the 'Host name this list prefers for email' option in General settings ?? Thanks.. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft’s powerful SPAM protection. https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx?id=60969

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Untangling an unruly jungle of lists
by mailmanu-20100705＠billmail.scconsult.com 14 Jul '10

14 Jul '10

I have been tasked with cleaning up a collection of 23 lists running on Mailman that have been administered and moderated by a customer's non-technical staff for some time (> 2 years) without much training or assistance. At the top of my task list is the elimination of duplicate messages, which appear to be happening through two mechanisms: 1. Manually sending one message to multiple lists which have overlapping memberships. 2. A misnamed "all-lists" announcement list whose membership included a dozen of the other lists (with overlapping memberships) plus a handful of individual users who also were subscribed to those lists. It has been many years and versions since I've worked with Mailman in any significant way, so I feel like I need a sanity check on my repair plans. I have started with what seems to me to be the obvious first step to address (2). I have removed all of the other lists as members of "all-lists" and added their addresses to regular_include_lists instead, and since all of the direct subscribers wee in one or more of the sub-lists, I've removed them as well. This has left me with 4 questions: 1. Am I correct in my understanding that regular_include_lists does a de-duplication of the aggregate of all included lists? 2. Are the direct subscribers to the parent list included in the de-duplication? In other words: could I have left the direct subscribers in place without causing duplicates? 3. Since regular_include_lists is part of the non-digest settings, what exactly does a member of one or more of the included lists who is set to digest mode get when the parent list is mailed? 4. Are there non-obvious aspects of the regular_include_lists feature that I should be aware of, i.e. anything that argues in favor of using a script to assemble and de-dupe a membership list for it instead? To handle the mailings to arbitrary sets of overlapping lists, I gather that regular_exclude_lists is the tool to use, but I am not sure exactly how to build the configuration. I have a set of 21 lists that have some users in common with 2-17 others members of that set. To evade the complexity of that setup, I'm starting with a set of 4 that the customer has cited as particularly problematic, and I think what I need to do to get cross-mailings to arbitrary combinations of them de-duped I need something like these regular_exclude_lists: list1: list2, list3, list4 list2: list3, list4 list3: list4 list4: (empty) So, if I really want to de-dupe arbitrary cross-mailings between all 21 lists that have common members, I'd have to put lists 2-21 in for list1, 3-21 for list2, etc., and if the customer wants a new list that might overlap, it would need to get all of the existing lists in its regular_exclude_lists. Ugh. The questions I have about this: 1. Is that config correct? 2. Is there any useful basis for ordering the 4 lists I am making siblings? Should I make the biggest one list1 and the shortest list4 or should I order them based on the degree of overlap or something else? 3. Does setting regular_exclude_lists have any effect on how lists are handled as members of another list's regular_include_lists? 4. Has anyone devised an easier and less fragile approach? Maybe for Mailman 3? What I'd like most is a simple setting to have Mailman look at each message for other lists in the same domain or handled by the same server and work out the de-dupe cascade itself as needed. More broadly and philosophically, I am curious about how others handle similar list jungles. My first instinct is to decree that there shall be a sane hierarchy of parent lists with regular_include_lists such that there shall be no need to cross-post, but that seems a bit unrealistic at this point. Any helpful clues?

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Re: [Mailman-Users] Recipient address rejected: User unknown in virtualmailbox table
by Geoff Shang 12 Jul '10

12 Jul '10

On Fri, 9 Jul 2010, franc walter wrote: > But now i have the problem, that i want to create another list with another > virtual domain (example2.org), which is running on the same server. > > I guess this is only possible with this setting to get this > virtual-mailman.db, but i don't know how to continue.. Can you post your mm_cfg.py file as it is now? Geoff.

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filtering based on message content
by Russell Clemings 12 Jul '10

12 Jul '10

I've had a request from the boss to filter incoming messages to some of our lists based on the message content. Specifically, the request is to hold all messages containing the third of George Carlin's seven words (and presumably by extension also the sixth), which a couple of our subscribers seem to find suitable for use in any context. My first thought, not contradicted by a quick FAQ search, was that there's no way Mailman can do this on its own, at least without hacking core, because it's not scanning the whole message. My second thought was that Spam Assassin could be set to flag the offending messages; Mailman is already set to hold messages that have the spam flag set. But that seems like kind of a kludge. Actually, I take that back. My first thought was to just ban the offenders. But that's not going to fly. Any other ideas? rac

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