Mailman 3 August 2013 - Mailman-Users

Messages disappear after moderator approval
by Nicholas Waller Sept. 3, 2013

Sept. 3, 2013

We are seeing messages get dropped after passing through moderation on every one of our mailing lists. == Moderation fails when performed on a *separate* webserver == Our Mailman environment is split across two servers, front-end and back-end. The back-end server handles Postfix and the Mailman qrunners, while the front-end server hosts Apache and the Mailman CGI scripts for moderating lists. The two servers share an NFS mount between them that includes all the shared Mailman data. All normal mail flow is working correctly, but when a list moderator logs into the web frontend and approves a message, it disappears without a trace. 1. Postfix smtpd receives the incoming message over SMTP, then 2. Postfix smtpd delivers the message to /usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman. 3. Mailman marks writes to vette logfile (backend server) that message is held for approval. 4. List moderator uses CGI web interface to mark the message as approved. 5. Mailman writes an entry to vette logfile (on frontend server) saying held message approved. 6. At this point, the .pck file related to the held message disappears, but nothing is delivered, and no further log entries are created. == Moderation succeeds with web interface on the main Mailman server == Although we don't normally run the Mailman web interface on the back-end server (to reduce attack surface), I got it running for testing purposes. When we use the Mailman web interface on the backend server, the message gets delivered normally and we see these log entries as expected. 1. smtp logfile updated with number of recipients and time for completion 2. post logfile updated with list name, message ID, and "success". == Background == The problem started after migrating the Mailman environment to new servers. It didn't crop up on it's own, it's most likely a result of some configuration error that we haven't caught yet. We're using: - Scientific Linux 6.3 on both servers - Python 2.6.6 on both servers - Mailman 2.1.12 installed from OS packages on both servers - selinux in Permissive mode on backend server - selinux in Enforcing mode on frontend (web) server, but no log entries with type=AVC are being recorded. Furthermore, using setenforce 0 doesn't fix the problem. I'm not sure where to look next. Is it supported to run the Mailman frontend on a different server? What are the common points of failure when running a Mailman setup this way? -- Nic Waller System Administrator Phone 250-960-5919 Office ADM 3-2078B Information Technology Services University of Northern British Columbia

2 3

Moderation commands not working
by Simon Szustkowski Sept. 1, 2013

Sept. 1, 2013

Hi, i have a problem with a pending moderation request. Whenever i chose one of the four options for the pending email and submit the form, the page reloads and is still showing this email as pending. I did not find anything valuable in the log files, but i executed a check_perms to see if mailman can't moderate this email because of a filesystem permission problem. I don't know where to search for the bug, so i hope, anyone around here could help me. Thank you very much in advance. Simon

2 1

Moving a List from 2.1.11 (Mac) --> 2.1.9 (RHEL linux)
by Drew Tenenholz Sept. 1, 2013

Sept. 1, 2013

All -- Anything to be particularly aware of when moving a list from 2.1.11 on a Mac server (where I ignored the Apple pre-installed version of Mailman and set up a new installation from the Mailman source so at least the components are where they are supposed to be, OS X 10.5.8 [!] ) to a Linux server running RHEL 5.x and Mailman 2.1.9. I wouldn't prefer to downgrade, but consolidation of mailman to a single machine is going to be helpful in the long run. Unfortunately for me, I'm going from the Mac server where I have full control to a Linux server operated by a partner organization where I have somewhat less control in that I can't upgrade Mailman from the RHEL release version. I've read through the FAQ 3.4 at <http://wiki.list.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=4030682> which seems to indicate that it will generally be OK, but I'm looking for any changes that make my 2.1.11 list (which is in Cyrillic, by the way) not work well on the 2.1.9 installation (which does mostly English, and some Spanish & Portuguese, but nothing from a non-Roman alphabet right now). Thanks, Drew Tenenholz

2 1

Changing "Send questions and comments" mail-address without changing MAILMAN_OWNER
by Henrik Rasmussen Aug. 31, 2013

Aug. 31, 2013

I am running a Mailman version 2.1.5 installation. I need to change the e-mail address that users are requested to send questions and comments to (messages/uk/LC_MESSAGES/mailman.po: msgid "<p>(Send questions and comments to " I still need other mails like non-handled bounces to be sent to the original MAILMAN_OWNER site admin address mailman(a)my-server.example.com Is there a better way to achieve this than to change the line 280 in the Mailman/Cgi/admin.py file? * Line 280: Link('mailto:%s' % mailman_owner, mailman_owner) Henrik Rasmussen

2 1

Syntax Error on setup.py install (30.b3)
by LuKreme Aug. 27, 2013

Aug. 27, 2013

$ python -V Python 2.7.5 $ python bootstrap.py Downloading http://pypi.python.org/packages/2.7/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg Traceback (most recent call last): File "bootstrap.py", line 254, in <module> ws.require(requirement) File "/tmp/tmpZegqnz/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg/pkg_resources.py", line 666, in require File "/tmp/tmpZegqnz/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg/pkg_resources.py", line 565, in resolve pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: zc.buildout==2.2.0 So I tried: $ python setup.py build $ python setup.py install .... Installed /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/decorator-3.4.0-py2.7.egg Searching for lazr.delegates Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/lazr.delegates/ Reading https://launchpad.net/lazr.delegates Reading https://launchpad.net/lazr.delegates/+download Best match: lazr.delegates 2.0 Downloading https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/l/lazr.delegates/lazr.delegates-2.0… Processing lazr.delegates-2.0.tar.gz Writing /tmp/easy_install-ogw7Xe/lazr.delegates-2.0/setup.cfg Running lazr.delegates-2.0/setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir /tmp/easy_install-ogw7Xe/lazr.delegates-2.0/egg-dist-tmp-ssyQhM File "build/bdist.freebsd-9.1-RELEASE-i386/egg/lazr/delegates/_python3.py", line 27 def delegate_to(*interfaces, context='context'): ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/lazr.delegates-2.0-py2.7.egg/lazr/delegates/_python3.py", line 27 def delegate_to(*interfaces, context='context'): ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax Adding lazr.delegates 2.0 to easy-install.pth file Installed /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/lazr.delegates-2.0-py2.7.egg Finished processing dependencies for mailman==3.0.0b3 Should I be worried? Is there an Install document somewhere I missed? -- Live long enough to become a problem to your kids.

1 0

Polling or voting on list
by e.c. Aug. 24, 2013

Aug. 24, 2013

Our list would benefit from an ability on the part of listmembers to vote on proposals made by listowners. In this type of discussion list a non-secret ballot would be appropriate, and both a tally of pro and con vote totals along with table (text file?) showing the vote associated with each subscribed email address. The results could be sent to each listmember or posted somehow on the list webmail site. (Does mailman have an area like Sympa's _Shared Documents_ area in the web interface?) Also, a way of setting a deadline for voting would have to be an option. (In our case a voting period of between 10 and 30 days would be appropriate.) Thanks for any info about mailman's current capabilities along these lines or suggestions for implementing this functionality. Ed

3 3

ANN: wiki.list.org migrations
by Barry Warsaw Aug. 23, 2013

Aug. 23, 2013

Hello everyone, I want to mention a few things related to wiki.list.org. First and most immediately, our currently wiki hosting provider Contegix, is in the process of a major infrastructure update which will cause some downtime for wiki.list.org. Contegix has been hosting our wiki gratis for several years, for which we are very grateful. Their support over the years has been superb. Unfortunately, the infrastructure our wiki is hosted on is quite legacy, and in fact, we are the last organization to be hosted on it. The time has come to for them to retire it, but they have again graciously offered to continue hosting our wiki gratis on their new infrastructure. The migration process is tricky, since we have to coordinate with Contegix's timing and our DNS changes with John Viega (Mailman's original author and owner of the list.org domain). Please be aware that the wiki may experience some downtime as both DNS and the instance get shuffled around. As some of you know, Paul Boddie has been working diligently on migrating our current Atlassian Confluence wiki to Moin. While Confluence has served us well over the years, we recognize that it is inappropriate for a GNU project such as Mailman to utilize a non-free wiki. Moin is our current choice for a free software wiki hosting platform, and Paul has done an amazing job on the migration, as anyone who reads mailman-developers can see. That work is close, but not quite ready for production. Stay tuned for more announcements on that front, or join mailman-developers for more information, or if you'd like to pitch in to help. We will send another announcement when the Contegix transfer is complete. In the meantime, if you see outages for wiki.list.org, please be patient. I hope there won't be too much of a disruption of service. Cheers, -Barry

1 0

Removing somebody from all lists (even pending subscriptions)
by Ralf Hildebrandt Aug. 18, 2013

Aug. 18, 2013

At python.org we recently had massive subscription attempts from addresses to multiple (>10) mailinglists, with an obvious intention of spamming. Naturally, I used: /srv/mailman/bin/remove_members --fromall address(a)freemailer.example to remove the culprit from all lists. Unfortunately I have not found a way of removing the address from the list of *pending* subscription requests. How can I solve that problem? -- Ralf Hildebrandt Charite Universitätsmedizin Berlin ralf.hildebrandt(a)charite.de Campus Benjamin Franklin http://www.charite.de Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203 Berlin Geschäftsbereich IT, Abt. Netzwerk fon: +49-30-450.570.155

2 1

New list sending only to one member
by Crile Carvey Aug. 18, 2013

Aug. 18, 2013

Hello, I have added a new list to an existing, fully functional mailman installation but messages are not being delivered to all of the list members. This mailman instance has been operational for a number of years servicing two other active lists. Those lists continue to work just fine, so I don't believe it is an installation or mailman problem but rather something I did or did not do when adding the new list. I used the mailman web interface to create the list and add the members. The only thing I did outside of the mailman web interface was to add aliases. I added the aliases by using webmin, which provides a GUI layer on top of postfix. Everything seemed to work fine until I started testing. After posting a test message to the list, I found that the test message was only delivered to one member. It may be of interest that the one member to whom the message was delivered is a member of one of the other lists and is also a mailman administrator. I am a mailman newbie, as well as clumsy with linux, but I have full access to the server and I am comfortable running commands. Thanks for any assistance or hints. Crile

2 1

Re: [Mailman-Users] virtual domain and alias_maps
by Dr Michael Daly Aug. 17, 2013

Aug. 17, 2013

Hi Running genaliases produces NO output, just a carriage return. Running genaliases -h produces the relevant help information I should say the mailman version is 2.1.9, which was installed via an 'apt-get' command on a centos package. In mm_cfg.py I have: ('cpddomain.org.au' is not the real domain name, but it is a virtual one) At present a subscriber can send a message to the list owner, but no others, and the message does NOT have the expected Subject Line prefix eg [List name] ############################################################## # Put YOUR site-specific configuration below, in mm_cfg.py . # # See Defaults.py for explanations of the values. # # Note - if you're looking for something that is imported from mm_cfg, but you # didn't find it above, it's probably in Defaults.py. # add_virtualhost('www.cpddomain.org.au', 'cpddomain.org.au') POSTFIX_STYLE_VIRTUAL_DOMAINS = ['cpddomain.org.au'] MTA = 'Postfix' Thanks Michael Michael Daly wrote: >Hi >I am having problems getting mail delivered to list members, on a virtual > domain. This did not happen when a conventional ie non virtual, domain. >Maybe there is a problem with aliases...I had to manually create the > /usr/lib/mailman/data dir and both the 'alias' and 'virtual-mailman' > files in that dir >(not sure of what contents should be in the described 'alias' and > 'virtual-mailman' files) >But running genaliases does not create the expected .db files What output do you get after running it? >In postfix I have: >alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases, hash:/usr/lib/mailman/data/aliases Not required. virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual, hash:/usr/lib/mailman/data/virtual-mailman Yes. >and I have created the list and configured mm_cfg.py as specified So you set MTA to Postfix and populated POSTFIX_STYLE_VIRTUAL_DOMAINS to your virtual domains? Thanks. Andrew. Dr Michael Daly MB, BS GradDip(Integrative Medicine), GradCert(Evidence Based Practice), M Bus(Information Innovation), GradDip(Document Management) 03 9521 0352 0413 879 029

2 4