Mailman 3 August 2012 - Mailman-Users

Group mismatch puzzle
by Lindsay Haisley 27 Aug '12

27 Aug '12

I've set up mailman 2.1.15 on a new server, properly configured with "--with-mail-gid=mail" and I can create lists from scratch on it, and they appear to be working perfectly. I have a number of lists on an older server, however, (also running mailman) which I want to move to the new server. I have a script which I've used previously with good results to do this which creates three tarballs: * The contents of the directory /var/lib/mailman/lists/<listname> * The archive files under /var/lib/mailman/private/<listname> * The mbox file in /var/lib/mailman/private/<listname>.mbox Additionally a flag file indicates whether or not archives are public. The receiving server has a script which just undoes this, putting all the files in the right place and creating a symlink in /var/lib/mailman/public if the flag file is present indicating that the list has public archives. This script pair worked perfectly for moving lists between servers using the same Linux distribution, but at this point I'm moving from a server running Gentoo Linux to one running Ubuntu Server Linux, where the GID table is somewhat different. When I try to post to a _moved_ list, I get a failure with the following error in the mail logs: Group mismatch error. Mailman expected the mail wrapper script to be executed as group "mail", but the system's mail server executed the mail script as group "man". Try tweaking the mail server to run the script as group "mail", or re-run configure, providing the command line option `--with-mail-gid=man'. [i.e. "mail" != "man"] It seems that the group "mail" has a GID of 12 on the old server, however this GID corresponds to the group "man" on the new server and "mail" has a GID of 8. All the group ownerships of the pickle files and archive files are proper on the new server (group "mailman") so the GID if 12 must be encoded as a number somewhere _within_ the list files imported from the old server, and when the list is put in place on new server, the GID is matched up with the group "man", and a group mismatch is flagged. Does anyone have any idea how to fix this? I can't find any way to access the mail wrapper script GID in the list web UI (which apparently is stored per-list since lists created _on_ the server work OK). I have bunch of lists to move, so this will need to be fixed. Recreating all lists manually with their thousands of administrator and user prefs is out of the question! -- Lindsay Haisley | "Real programmers use butterflies" FMP Computer Services | 512-259-1190 | - xkcd http://www.fmp.com |

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Migration of old debian woody mailman server
by Peter Merritt 24 Aug '12

24 Aug '12

I have to migrate a dead mailman server running on debian woody to a new Ubuntu server. The drive failed and I was able to image the drive to a new drive but mailman will not run, seems that their is significant problems with the current mailman installation. All the commands seem die with python tracebacks. The data directories for mailman seen to be OK. I did some research on moving a list to a new server an it seems reasonably easy. But I am concerned about moving from an older version of mailman to a newer version. Additionally, I am going to use postfix for the mta, the old server is using exim. I also notice postgres running on the old server and wonder if exim/mailman could be using to for management. I did not have time to fully research the setup, its been running unattended for 8+ years. I am looking for input about possible pitfalls and ideas to make this go easier Any help would be greatly appreciated. Peter partsmaps(a)weirdwater.org <- Do not Use

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Will this cause problems for the lists?
by Steff Watkins 23 Aug '12

23 Aug '12

Hi all, Just been reading the wonderful emails and pages about upgrading Mailman, which is a task I've had to do once before. Now one thing that really gives me the shivers is the idea of installing the new updated version of Mailman right over the old/current version as I've seen suggested a couple of time. OK, if it works for you fine but I feel that that leaves you very little room for rollback should the new version not perform quite as expected. So I currently have a nice working setup that's installed as /usr/local/mailman-2.x.x symlink'ed to /usr/local/mailman and that works just fine. It allows me to have the current version and the previous version there for comparison/rollback/experimenting. Now one thing I have noticed that has bothered me/caused me some problems with this sort of setup is that everytime I have to upgrade I have to copy all the mail-list data out, then make sure that ownerships/permissions of the mail-list data in its new location is correct. So I had an idea. What if I make a directory, /usr/local/mailman-data for instance and then symlink the data, lists and archive directories from the current active mailman directories back into this separated data directory. I've been running with this setup for a few days now and it seems to be working just fine, no complaints from users or systems. I'm also thinking that it is likely to make upgrades require less downtime as the new version can be built and linked into the current list data and then rolled over. OK, maybe not if there a file format conversion needed but in general yes. However, I'm just wondering if I may be building up a problem for myself when one of the "less frequent" Mailman processes or events occur. So is separating the data out from the mailman binaries in this way a good idea or not worth the effort? Regards, Steff Watkins ----- Steff Watkins Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London,SW75BD Systems programmer Email: s.watkins(a)nhm.ac.uk Systems Team Phone: +44 (0)20 7942 6000 opt 2 ======== "Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans." - HHGTTG

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Mailman: Recipient address rejected: User unknown in local recipient table
by Futchko, Rose 22 Aug '12

22 Aug '12

Good Morning, I just finished migrating Mailman from one server to another, following the instructions at URL http://wiki.list.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=4030682 I am running Mailman version is 2.1.15 But now I am seeing the following error in my /var/log/maillog "NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from unknown[]: 550 5.1.1 <external IP Address>: Recipient address rejected: User unknown in local recipient table; from=<d> to=<> proto=ESMTP helo=<[]>" Here is my postconf -n output: alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases, hash:/etc/mailman/aliases alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases, hash:/etc/mailman/aliases command_directory = /usr/sbin config_directory = /etc/postfix daemon_directory = /usr/libexec/postfix data_directory = /var/lib/postfix debug_peer_level = 2 html_directory = no inet_protocols = all mailq_path = /usr/bin/mailq.postfix manpage_directory = /usr/share/man mydestination = $myhostname, list.$mydomain mydomain = informs.org myhostname = mail.informs.org myorigin = $myhostname newaliases_path = /usr/bin/newaliases.postfix readme_directory = /usr/share/doc/postfix-2.6.6/README_FILES recipient_delimiter = + sample_directory = /usr/share/doc/postfix-2.6.6/samples sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix setgid_group = postdrop smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks reject_unauth_destination unknown_local_recipient_reject_code = 550 Here is my mm_cfg.py config file: DEFAULT_URL_HOST = 'list.informs.org' DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST = 'list.informs.org' add_virtualhost(DEFAULT_URL_HOST, DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST) MTA = 'Postfix' ************* Can someone please counsel as to how to correct this error? Thank you, Rose Rose Futchko Director of Information Technology INFORMS 7240 Parkway Drive, Suite 300 Hanover, MD 21076 Rose.Futchko(a)INFORMS.org 443.757.3500

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is bin/find_members available from web interface directly ?
by Bruce Harrison 21 Aug '12

21 Aug '12

I know I can do a subscribe/unsubscribe via a web call: List a member: http://example.com/mailman/admin/<listname>/members?findmember=<email-address>&setmemberopts_btn&adminpw=<adminpassword> Is it possible to call the /bin/find_member script to retrieve a list of lists a person is subscribed to? Is there another way to get this particular bit of information? Bruce Harrison UT Martin

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Mailman Problems under OSX Lion
by David Dodell 21 Aug '12

21 Aug '12

This list is my last hope on getting my problems fixed. I am running OSX Lion (not Mountain Lion). Mailman was part of the default installation. I have two issues which I have gotten absolutely no help from Apple Enterprise Support ... basic answer, we don't support open source software and couldn't answer me on why they installed / advertised mailing lists but don't support it ... but I regress. (1) First issue is cosmetic. At the bottom of each administrative page, mailman does not display the icons which I see on ever other mailman website ... basically the mailman / python logos. Not a real big deal, besides the cosmetic irk. I've checked the docs, found the path in the config file, and sure enough the images are there in the path, but they still do not display. Ideas? (2) Second issue is more serious. I can't get list moderation to work. A message comes in to be moderator, I get email notification of this. However, if I login to the administrator page, "pending moderator requests", if I try to approve, reject, or any other command on that page, NOTHING happens ... the message keeps appearing, no action is taken etc. I've repaired all permissions, but besides that, lost on what to try next. Would appreciate any insight. Thank you. David Dodell

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Problem when creating new lists
by David Renstrom 21 Aug '12

21 Aug '12

Hi, Everytime I create a new list using the Web interface in Mailman I get the following error: Bug in Mailman version 2.1.14 We're sorry, we hit a bug! Please inform the webmaster for this site of this problem. Printing of traceback and other system information has been explicitly inhibited, but the webmaster can find this information in the Mailman error logs. The file /etc/mailman/Virtual-mailman has changed ownership from mailman to apache. I have to change it manually and then run the genaliases and postmap commands to make the system work correctly again. Could someone please tell me what's wrong because I'm kinda lost? See below for more info. Content of /var/log/mailman/error: Aug 20 23:54:13 2012 (29703) command failed: /usr/sbin/postalias /etc/mailman/aliases (status: 1, Operation not permitted) Aug 20 23:54:13 2012 admin(29703): @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ admin(29703): [----- Mailman Version: 2.1.14 -----] admin(29703): [----- Traceback ------] admin(29703): Traceback (most recent call last): admin(29703): File "/usr/lib/mailman/scripts/driver", line 112, in run_main admin(29703): main() admin(29703): File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Cgi/create.py", line 56, in main admin(29703): process_request(doc, cgidata) admin(29703): File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Cgi/create.py", line 239, in process_request admin(29703): sys.modules[modname].create(mlist, cgi=1) admin(29703): File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/MTA/Postfix.py", line 238, in create admin(29703): _update_maps() admin(29703): File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/MTA/Postfix.py", line 53, in _update_maps admin(29703): raise RuntimeError, msg % (acmd, status, errstr) admin(29703): RuntimeError: command failed: /usr/sbin/postalias /etc/mailman/aliases (status: 1, Operation not permitted) admin(29703): [----- Python Information -----] admin(29703): sys.version = 2.7.1 (r271:86832, Apr 12 2011, 16:15:16) [GCC 4.6.0 20110331 (Red Hat 4.6.0-2)] admin(29703): sys.executable = /usr/bin/python admin(29703): sys.prefix = /usr admin(29703): sys.exec_prefix = /usr admin(29703): sys.path = ['/usr/lib/mailman/pythonlib', '/usr/lib/mailman', '/usr/lib/mailman/scripts', '/usr/lib/mailman', '/usr/lib64/python27.zip', '/usr/lib64/python2.7/', '/usr/lib64/python2.7/plat-linux2', '/usr/lib64/python2.7/lib-tk', '/usr/lib64/python2.7/lib-old', '/usr/lib64/python2.7/lib-dynload', '/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages'] admin(29703): sys.platform = linux2 admin(29703): [----- Environment Variables -----] admin(29703): HTTP_COOKIE: SESSae9265d1ff1a26d16ed53a0ed247816c=i2mjdepcbf7rgac7kgreaeh2t3; SESSd6dc799775a4e319c149c4959a84efa2=vah0edt1d26euphiurqulrncd1 admin(29703): SERVER_SOFTWARE: Apache/2.2.21 (Fedora) admin(29703): SCRIPT_NAME: /mailman/create admin(29703): SERVER_SIGNATURE: <address>Apache/2.2.21 (Fedora) Server at www.ungasynskadade.se Port 80</address> admin(29703): admin(29703): REQUEST_METHOD: POST admin(29703): SERVER_PROTOCOL: HTTP/1.1 admin(29703): QUERY_STRING: admin(29703): CONTENT_LENGTH: 151 admin(29703): HTTP_USER_AGENT: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/5.0) admin(29703): HTTP_CONNECTION: Keep-Alive admin(29703): HTTP_REFERER: http://www.ungasynskadade.se/mailman/create admin(29703): SERVER_NAME: www.ungasynskadade.se admin(29703): REMOTE_ADDR: 94.254.99.6 admin(29703): SERVER_PORT: 80 admin(29703): SERVER_ADDR: 91.123.204.174 admin(29703): DOCUMENT_ROOT: /var/www/html admin(29703): PYTHONPATH: /usr/lib/mailman admin(29703): SCRIPT_FILENAME: /usr/lib/mailman/cgi-bin/create admin(29703): SERVER_ADMIN: root@localhost admin(29703): HTTP_HOST: www.ungasynskadade.se admin(29703): HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL: no-cache admin(29703): REQUEST_URI: /mailman/create admin(29703): HTTP_ACCEPT: text/html, application/xhtml+xml, */* admin(29703): GATEWAY_INTERFACE: CGI/1.1 admin(29703): REMOTE_PORT: 59287 admin(29703): HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE: sv admin(29703): CONTENT_TYPE: application/x-www-form-urlencoded admin(29703): HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING: gzip, deflate Cheers, /David R.

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Administratively subscribe other users via email
by Nick Bright 20 Aug '12

20 Aug '12

I'm sorry if this is a repeated question; but I've spent the last hour searching/reading faq's and not finding anything useful. I'm creating a newsletter mailing list, which I've successfully done - now, I am trying to get my billing system to automatically add new customers to the mailing list. The easiest way to do this would be to have my billing system send an email to mailman to subscribe the user. However, I have as of yet been unable to locate any information on how to do so. I've tried using the "Approved:" header with a subscribe command in the mail body, following the subscribe command syntax at http://www.list.org/mailman-member/node41.html, but the response back from mailman is that the commands remain unprocessed. What is the correct syntax for doing this? -- ----------------------------------------------- - Nick Bright - - Vice President of Technology - - Valnet -=- We Connect You -=- - - Tel 888-332-1616 x 315 / Fax 620-331-0789 - - Web http://www.valnet.net/ - ----------------------------------------------- - Are your files safe? - - Valnet Vault - Secure Cloud Backup - - More information & 30 day free trial at - - http://www.valnet.net/services/valnet-vault - -----------------------------------------------

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How to disable notifications to moderator and owner of pending posts?
by Mikael Jokela 20 Aug '12

20 Aug '12

Dear Mailman-users! I have a list configuration question. I would like to totally disable email notifications for a list regarding pending posts. The list moderator or admin would login to the admindb page from time to time regardless any notifications. The moderator and admin would get notifications of membership requests and such but none of pending posts. I can't find a configuration parameter for this. How would you do this? I'm using Mailman version 2.1.9 installed from CentOS5 RPM. Cheers, Mikael

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creating second mailinglist
by Andre Vallese 20 Aug '12

20 Aug '12

Hi! We have a mailinglist already running well. Now trying to create a new mailinglist. So we are on http://listen.ifz.name/mailman/admin and click on create new list. What appears is the site http://listen.ifz.name/mailman/create with the text: Internal Server Error The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@localhost and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error. More information about this error may be available in the server error log. _____ Apache/2.2.9 (Debian) PHP/5.2.6-1+lenny3 with Suhosin-Patch Server at listen.ifz.name Port 80 What can we do? Thanks for your efforts in advance, André Institut für Zweiradsicherheit e.V. | Servicepark Essen | Gladbecker Straße 425 | 45329 Essen Telefon (0201) 83 53 9-0 | Telefax (0201) 83 53 9-99 | E-Mail: <mailto:info@ifz.de> info(a)ifz.de | Webpage: <http://www.ifz.de> www.ifz.de facebook <http://www.facebook.com/pages/Institut-f%C3%BCr-Zweiradsicherheit-eV/362746 900439593> Beschreibung: fb-microIcon | twitter <https://twitter.com/#!/ifz1> Beschreibung: microIcon <http://twitfooter.com/user/ifz1> Beschreibung: http://twitfooter.com/status/img/606434064?nocache=1566130018 Steuernummer 111 / 5785 / 1976 VR Essen, Nr. 3943 Institutsleiter: Dr.-Ing. Achim Kuschefski Diese E-Mail enthält vertrauliche und/oder rechtlich geschützte Informationen. Wenn Sie nicht der beabsichtigte Empfänger sind, informieren Sie bitte sofort den Absender und löschen Sie diese E-Mail. Das unbefugte Kopieren dieser E-Mail oder die unbefugte Weitergabe der enthaltenen Informationen ist nicht gestattet. The information contained in this message is confidential and/or protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and delete this message. Any unauthorised copying of this message or unauthorised distribution of the information contained herein is prohibited.

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