Mailman 3 July 2011 - Mailman-Users

Editing Mailman's text files
by Pete Bell 08 May '24

08 May '24

Hi. I'm a new member of this group but have been running an email list with Mailman for a long time. I am now setting a list up again and want to give a "look and feel" to the list which has more branding of my user group as a whole, and less of a Mailman-feel. I seem to remember that besides editing the public HTML pages, it is possible to edit the text files which Mailman automatically sends out for certain needs (such as 'approve.txt', 'adminsubscribeack.txt', 'invite.txt', and so on). A. Is this still the case? B. If so, where can I find them? (in case they've changed from the ones I have from long ago). C. Where do they need putting, so that Mailman can use them again? It's important that I should tell you that Mailman on my webhosts servers is a "server-wide" installation, and I don't get to edit anything which other clients to their servers need. This would be only for my own use, and as such I need to know where these files go in my own webspace, and how to get Mailman to use them instead of the default ones. I should also say that I have done this before, so unless the facility to do this has been ditched in recent years, I *should* still be able to do it ! Does Mailman perhaps look for these files somewhere in my webspace (which I have to give a specific name), and if it doesn't find them it goes on to find its default versions of these files? Thanks in advance for your help. Pete Bell, UK

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Running two list with same email prefix
by Andrea Cappelli 27 Feb '24

27 Feb '24

Hi all, I'm running a mail server with Debian Lenny, MTA is Postfix and i will use postfix-to-mailma.py script to run list I would set up Mailman for running mailing list with same email prefix on different domains, obvious with different list names For example we have ml.domain1.com and ml.domain2.net, i would like to have LISTADDRESS LISTNAME tech(a)ml.domain1.com tech-ml.domain1.com tech(a)ml.domain.2.net tech-ml.domain2.net In this way i can have the same address on differente domains and Mailman (my version is 2.1.11) can distinguish between lists because the list name is different. The list name will be also used to access web interface, so we have http://ml.domain1.com/mailman/admin/tech-ml.domain1.com http://ml.domain2.net/mailman/admin/tech-ml.domain2.net Is possible to accomplish this task? Any idea?

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Hide list address?
by Ricardo Kleemann 16 Nov '23

16 Nov '23

Hi, Is there any way to configure Mailman such that, for an announcement-only type list, when a message is sent to the list, the To: shows the member's address, rather than the list address? Some list software allows the ability to hide the list address itself, so that address is not advertised. I couldn't find any configuration specific to that.

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Add "sender's name/email" to BODY of mail as header?
by Mal 16 Feb '21

16 Feb '21

I want all mails sent to the list to come from the list's email address... But, in this case, if the user forgets to sign their name at the bottom of their mail body, effectively the mail to the list is anonymous...! Is there a way to add the user name (or email address) to the top of each mail so that the mails have the name of the sender, while the mail itself comes from the list address? I have looked high and low for an answer, but noone seems to have the solution. Thank you! Mal

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Mailman CGI Error-Group mismatch error
by Wang, Mary Y 09 Sep '20

09 Sep '20

Hi, I received the following error this morning. So I rerun configure again with the following command: ./configure --with-cgi-id=apache --prefix=/var/mailman. I'm still getting the same error. Is there any place that I can look for so that I can debug this problem better? Perhaps, looking at the config history file or something. Any other places that I can check the cause of this error? "Mailman CGI error!!! The Mailman CGI wrapper encountered a fatal error. This entry is being stored in your syslog: Group mismatch error. Mailman expected the CGI wrapper script to be executed as group "nobody", but the system's web server executed the CGI script as group "apache". Try tweaking the web server to run the script as group "nobody", or re-run configure, providing the command line option `--with-cgi-gid=apache'." Thanks Mary

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mailman on freeBSD 8.2: getgrgid error
by Rekhesh Mohan 04 Aug '11

04 Aug '11

Hi folks, I've been fiddling with mailman 2.1.14 (from freebsd ports) on free BSD 8.2. Everything seems to be fine so far except for the web based stuff. I get the following error when I try to access the page: http://this.great.site/mailman/listinfo -------<error>-------- Mailman CGI error!!! The Mailman CGI wrapper encountered a fatal error. This entry is being stored in your syslog: Failure to find group name for GID 80. Mailman expected the CGI wrapper to be executed as group "www", but the system's web server executed the wrapper as GID 80 for which the name could not be found. Try adding GID 80 to your system as "www", or tweak your web server to run the wrapper as group "www". -------</error>--------- This system has a www user and gid is 80 (group = www). In the first attempt, I let freebsd choose its own configure-arguments and later I tried it myself. Error remained the same. AFAIK, src/common.c is checking the GID with getgid() followed by getgrgid(). Now, my machine uses blowfish instead of md5 for passwd. getgid() is returning 80 - which is fine since i have gid(www) = 80 on my system. However, getgrgid(gid) returns null :-| I gave up my fight at that point and decided to ask for help :) I tried to figure out the behaviour of these functions with a small test code: getgrgid() returns gr_passwd = * for blowfish, and gr_passwd = x for md5. Is that an issue with mailman or am I making mistakes somewhere else in the installation? My apache config is given below (I followed the steps in installation doc.) Thanks in advance..! ---------<apache-config4mailman>---------------- ScriptAlias /mailman/ "/usr/local/mailman/cgi-bin/" Alias /pipermail/ "/usr/local/mailman/archives/public/" <Directory "/usr/local/mailman"> Options FollowSymLinks ExecCGI AllowOverride None Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> RedirectMatch ^/mailman[/]*$ http://this.great.site/mailman/listinfo/ ---------</apache-config4mailman>----------------

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mailman problem with exim
by Lorenzo Coronati 01 Aug '11

01 Aug '11

hi all I'm trying to make mailman work with exim (on a centos server) but I'm facing a problem: when a subscriber posts a message, it isn't forwarded to the other subscribers, and no error message is sent back to the sender this is what I find in the /var/log/exim/main.log: 2011-07-28 09:01:50 1QmKbO-0004h7-NS <= lorenzo(a)coronati.com H=adsl-ull-193-191.49-151.net24.it ([192.168.0.207]) [151.49.191.193] P=esmtpa A=plain_login:lorenzo@coronati.com S=644 id=4E310960.6050509(a)coronati.com T="provo io" 2011-07-28 09:01:50 1QmKbO-0004h7-NS Failed to find group "" from expanded string "${lookup mysql{select users.gid from users,domains where localpart = '${quote_mysql:$local_part}' and domain = '${quote_mysql:$domain}' and users.domain_id = domains.domain_id}}" for the address_pipe transport 2011-07-28 09:01:50 1QmKbO-0004h7-NS == |/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman post mailinglistaips <mailinglistaips(a)aips.it> R=system_aliases T=address_pipe defer (-28): Failed to find group "" from expanded string "${lookup mysql{select users.gid from users,domains where localpart = '${quote_mysql:$local_part}' and domain = '${quote_mysql:$domain}' and users.domain_id = domains.domain_id}}" for the address_pipe transport what I understand is that exim (which is configured to manage the email addresses stored in a mysql database) tries to expand the mailing list looking for subscribers via sql, instead of letting mailman to do this am I right? and then, what do I have to do to fix this? thanks in advance lorenzo

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Error when e-mailing a list: User unknown in virtual alias table
by Tom Browder 31 Jul '11

31 Jul '11

I get this message when posting to my new lists: Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: news(a)mydomain.org Technical details of permanent failure: Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 5.1.1 <news(a)mydomain.org>: Recipient address rejected: User unknown in virtual alias table (state 14). The Mailman docs (specifically /etc/mailman/postfix-to-mailman.py) says that I don't have to set up virtual aliases: # -join, -leave, -subscribe and -unsubscribe addresses. It will # recognize a list as soon as the list is created, there is no need to # add _any_ aliases for any list. It recognizes mail to postmaster, but is that really true? Thanks, -Tom Thomas M. Browder, Jr. Niceville, Florida USA

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Mailman error: Forbidden: You don't have permission to access /pipermail/grads/ on this server
by Tom Browder 31 Jul '11

31 Jul '11

I'm testing a new installation of postfix and mailman on a remote server (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, 64-bit) with two active virtual hosts. Each host is accessed via a switch to https (TLS). I installed mailman (and postfix) via my package manager. I've established four lists, two for each server, and I can send and receive mail successfully so far. However, I, as a list user, cannot get access to the archives for a list. When I try to look at the archives through the link on the Welcome message I get the following: Forbidden You don't have permission to access /pipermail/grads/ on this server. I tried changing the example line in the mailman.conf file from: Alias /pipermail/ /var/lib/mailman/archives/public/ to ScriptAlias /pipermail/ /var/lib/mailman/archives/public/ but that didn't change anything so I changed it back. I have searched this list for "pipermail" but see no similar problem. I'm sure I've missed a note somewhere but I'm not sure how to proceed. The mailman docs talk about permissions and the mailman user but Ubuntu installs all mailman files with root:list ownership which seems to work for all else. All the directories under /var/lib/mailman have these permissions: drwxrwsr-x 4 root list Thanks for your help. Best regards, -Tom Thomas M. Browder, Jr. Niceville, Florida USA

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Setting MIME as default for new Non-Digest subscribers
by Steve Reiter 31 Jul '11

31 Jul '11

Hi - I have searched FAQ and archives to find an answer. Hoping you can help. I have a new list (with previously imported addresses) for announcements only, and wish these announcements to be received immediately. I set the defaults to allow non-digest and to not allow digest. I wish to send out announcements in html, and so wish to make the default for new subscribers be MIME. While I see a setting under Digest Options (MIME_is_Default_Digest), I don't see any equivalent option under Non-Digest Options... and new subscribers continue to come in as plain text. QUESTIONS: In order to avoid having to manually change this option for each existing subscriber, is there a way to force all existing subscribers to receive MIME in Non-Digest mode? If not, is there a way to force all NEW subscribers to be enrolled with MIME as their default? Also, is there a way to "lock" the MIME switch on, so that users who try to change their option to plain text will be prevented from doing so? Thanks - Steve

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