Mailman 3 March 2019 - Mailman-Users

Installing Mailman on a Debian system with Apache 2.4.2, CGI error!
by Jayson Smith Dec. 5, 2019

Dec. 5, 2019

Hi, This is a weird one. I think of myself as knowing my way around Mailman pretty well for a user/admin/installer/upgrader. I'm upgrading to a Debian 9 system from CentOS 6.5. Debian's Apache configs took a bit of getting used to, but I actually like them better. It uses Apache 2.4.2. I wanted to install Mailman from source, since the latest version is 2.1.26, Debian has 2.1.23, and IIRC that's too old to have some screen reader optimizations I want. So I built, installed, all working well. I copied over the Mailman config from my CentOS system to use in Apache, making some changes so it'd work under 2.4.2. Here it is: -------------------- # # httpd configuration settings for use with mailman. # ScriptAlias /mailman/ /usr/lib/mailman/cgi-bin/ <Directory /usr/lib/mailman/cgi-bin/> AllowOverride None Options ExecCGI Require all granted </Directory> Alias /pipermail/ /var/lib/mailman/archives/public/ <Directory /var/lib/mailman/archives/public> Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Require all granted AddDefaultCharset Off </Directory> # Uncomment the following line, to redirect queries to /mailman to the # listinfo page (recommended). # RedirectMatch ^/mailman[/]*$ /mailman/listinfo -------------------- The problem is that the CGI isn't working. If I go to http://temphostname/mailman/listinfo/mailman for example, Apache says /usr/lib/mailman/cgi-bin/listinfo/mailman doesn't exist. If I just go to /mailman/listinfo I get an Elf binary thrown at me, rather than the page saying there are no advertised lists. If I do the same thing from the server using the Lynx web browser, I get the same binary thrown at me, with a page title, "Mailman CGI error!" It sounds to me like Apache 2.4.2 isn't seeing that /usr/lib/mailman/cgi-bin is, in fact, CGI scripts, and is trying to treat them like regular files. Has something else changed between Apache versions? Thanks, Jayson

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mailman on google comput engine
by 황병희 Oct. 8, 2019

Oct. 8, 2019

i just did make one vm instance Ubuntu 18.04 on google compute engine. barely i did install postfix at there. hmm if possible, i wish to run mailing service for my family and me -- it needs a little bit some comunication plus some records about family history. yes i want GNU Mailman very much!!! google compute engine blocked port 25 by default. in this case i can run mailman with other port (example 625)? again question, Mailman can act with 625 or 1625 or 2625, ...? Sincerely, Byung-Hee from South Korea. -- ^고맙습니다 _地平天成_ 감사합니다_^))//

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Debugging mass invitations using web page interface...
by The Mailing List Server Admin Sept. 5, 2019

Sept. 5, 2019

Dear Mailman Cognoscenti, I'm helping one of my list owners send out 5K plus invitations to students to subscribe to his mailing list. Our current configuration: Mailman v2.1.20 RHEL v5.11 Semdmail v8.13.8 Apache v2.2.3 Since this was the first time doing this, I suggested breaking the batch input into 3 groups, 50, 500, and the rest. The 50 went fine, as did the 500, but the largest batch gave him a generic web server error: > Internal Server Error > > The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was > unable to complete your request. > > Please contact the server administrator, root(a)conundrum.unh.edu 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. I looked at the logs and I couldn't find anything that hinted at what went wrong. So I asked the owner to send me the last back and I'd give it a try. I wrote a script that removed folks already subscribed to his list and split the remaining subscribers up into 6 files with a thousand records each. I just tried uploading the 1st batch of 1K, with the following options: Subscribe these users now... (*) Invite Send welcome message... (*) No Send notifications... (*) No And entered a 7 line paragraph explaining the invitation. I ended up having the same error happen. Looking at the Mailman logs, I can't see any difference before or after my submission. In the HTTPD logs, I see: >> [Fri Aug 26 19:59:23 2016] [warn] [client 132.177.215.132] Timeout >> waiting for output from CGI script >> /usr/local/mailman/cgi-bin/admin, referer: >> https://lists.unh.edu/mailman/admin/campus.connection/members/add >> [Fri Aug 26 19:59:23 2016] [error] [client 132.177.215.132] >> Premature end of script headers: admin, referer: >> https://lists.unh.edu/mailman/admin/campus.connection/members/add So is there an inherent limit to the number of invites that can be submitted via the web form? As a work around, how would I do large invites on behalf of the owner from the command line, including the 'extra text' that is allowed via the web interface? -- Cordially, the UNH Mailing List Server Admins Bill Costa, senior admin (603) 862-3056

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mailman headers get corrupted / incomplete
by wally b March 25, 2019

March 25, 2019

Hi, Since I updated my server (ubuntu, mailman with exim) it seems that mailman does not send the complete mail headers. Some mail clients can not interpret and display the mails correctly and show mails like this: ��8�}��ox�M�{^��鮖ةj�j[^�v��j��^1��ۀ��a6�A� Maybe I found the cause of this: (last part of) the headers look like this: .... X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No (on b(0, 0, = 0);" class=3D""><span style=3D"font-kerning: none" class=3D"">Als u zich = wilt afmelden voor deze emails, laat ... .... The text "..b(0,.." etc seems not to belong there. This is some text that is somewhere else in the mail and is copied over this part. I expect this line to be: X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No (on pknpserver.pknpapendrecht.nl); SAEximRunCond expanded to false How can this happen? Please help me to find out how this can occur. Regards, T

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iterative loop
by Web Analysts March 22, 2019

March 22, 2019

Using mailman 2.1.9 on ubuntu 14.04 using mysql for aliases and mail accounts. Iy was working fine for a long time then something went awry. Now I've got an iterative loop and multiple email lists are generating 'Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender' messages. Those message then have the following email as an attachment: This is the mail system at host mail.domainname.tld. I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below. For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster. If you do so, please include this problem report. You can delete your own text from the attached returned message. The mail system <|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman@ hostname.domainname.tld >: unknown user: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman" Please advise. Thank you!

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Transactional email services with Mailman
by Andrew Hodgson March 22, 2019

March 22, 2019

Hi, I am looking at using a transactional email service with Mailman as I am having issues with outbound email to specific domains (mainly gmail) being blocked and I don't send enough email out (around 2000-3000 a day) to get good scores. I remember we discussed this a few years ago but wanted to know current opinions on this. A lot of these change envelope info to get bounces pushed through their systems so they can let the system know to stop sending emails to the specific address, but I don't think these play nicely with Mailman. Any recommendations? Thanks. Andrew.

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Fwd: Uncaught runner exception
by Lothar Schilling March 22, 2019

March 22, 2019

Am 12.03.2019 um 23:47 schrieb Mark Sapiro: > On 3/12/19 2:37 AM, Lothar Schilling wrote: >> An example of a complete error message: >> >> Mar 11 17:02:22 2019 (15400) SHUNTING: >> 1552320069.504329+15fb4f71a5404fd1af3dafbe2780486d5b474cc7 >> Mar 11 17:22:37 2019 (15400) Uncaught runner exception: 'ascii' codec >> can't decode byte 0xb5 in position 26: ordinal not in range(128) >> Mar 11 17:22:37 2019 (15400) Traceback (most recent call last): >> File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Queue/Runner.py", line 119, in _oneloop >> self._onefile(msg, msgdata) >> File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Queue/Runner.py", line 190, in _onefile >> keepqueued = self._dispose(mlist, msg, msgdata) >> File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Queue/ArchRunner.py", line 77, in _dispose >> mlist.ArchiveMail(msg) >> File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/Archiver.py", line 216, in >> ArchiveMail >> h.processUnixMailbox(f) >> File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/pipermail.py", line 602, in >> processUnixMailbox >> self.add_article(a) >> File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/pipermail.py", line 646, in >> add_article >> author = fixAuthor(article.decoded['author']) >> File "/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/pipermail.py", line 63, in >> fixAuthor >> while i>0 and (L[i-1][0] in lowercase or >> UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xb5 in position 26: >> ordinal not in range(128) > Again, this is the code trying to "Canonicalize a name into Last, First > format". The complete statement is > > while i>0 and (L[i-1][0] in lowercase or > L[i-1].lower() in smallNameParts): > i = i - 1 > > smallNameParts is all lower case ascii, i.e. > > = ['van', 'von', 'der', 'de'] > > and L is the list returned by > > L = author.split() > > and none of the shunted .pck files you provided me have any name pieces > longer than 14 bytes and only 2 of the 5 even have any non-ascii, but > the decode error refers to byte 0xb5 in position 26 (B5 in iso-8859-1 is µ). > > I know you said in your original post > >> I am using Python 2.6.6 on a Centos 6 system. The output of >> /usr/lib64/python >>> import string >>> string.lowercase is >> 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz' (as it is supposed to be). > but see below. > >> The problem is site-wide, not just for one or two lists. Anyway, there >> are no altered templates or messages for a specific list. The only files >> deviating from the default configuration are: >> Defaults.py >> mm_cfg.py >> >> Of course Defaults.py has >> DEFAULT_SERVER_LANGUAGE = 'en'. >> >> So in mm_cfg.py I added >> DEFAULT_SERVER_LANGUAGE = 'de' >> add_language('en', 'English (USA)', 'iso-8859-1', 'ltr') >> >> But I cannot see how this would cause the problem. > Neither can I, but I tried again with those settings just to be sure, > and got no issues. > > All of this leads me to conclude that the issue must be non-ascii > following the 'z' in string.lowercase. > > What is the path to the Python interpreter that Mailman is using? /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/python -V: Python 2.6.6 > What do you get if in that Python you do > > import string > lowercase > string > > For example, I get > >>>> import string >>>> lowercase > 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz' >>>> string > <module 'string' from '/usr/lib/python2.7/string.pyc'> > import string lowercase Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> NameError: name 'lowercase' is not defined string <module 'string' from '/usr/lib64/python2.6/string.pyc'>

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list performance under add user load
by Julian H. Stacey March 21, 2019

March 21, 2019

Hi mailman-users@ When I created a petition signature collection site, mailman worked fine for my small list: http://mailman.berklix.org/mailman/listinfo/votes-sign Others since on this list asked if Mailman can support large lists (real mail lists, not petition signature lists as I unusually used Mailman for), (with answers inc. "How long's a piece of string?", aka "What's your back end SMTP capability?" etc). I can't provide insight on Mailman loads, but see a custom big petition list just crashed under load (no idea what software & hardware), https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584 was crashing repeatedly this morning https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47652071 my brother wrote me Thu, 21 Mar 2019 10:32:02 +0000 "it was going up by over 100,000 per hour earlier today" I'v seen: 43,676 signatures @ Wed, 20 Mar 2019 17:10:10 +0100 947,303 signatures @ Thu Mar 21 15:06:31 CET 2019 A load of about a million addresses with confirmation mails a day. BTW The "Show on a map" links to another site https://petitionmap.unboxedconsulting.com/?petition=241584 presumably that avoids extra load on signature site, nice functionality, but beyond remit for us on mailman-users@. Cheers, Julian -- Julian Stacey, Consultant Systems Engineer, BSD Linux Unix, Munich Aachen Kent Brexit now minority: 2.1 M now over 18, More Remainers; 1.5 M died, less Leavers; 700 K votes Stolen from British Remainers in EU; + 3 M globaly dis- franchised; + drift to Remain + avoid chaos. MPs should urge Queen: Dismiss May, appoint new PM for unity government & 2nd Referendum. Revoke Art. 50, plan better, refile Art.50 later? http://ExitBrexit.UK/#email_an_mp

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Delivery errors and spam grading
by Davide Marchi March 21, 2019

March 21, 2019

Hi Friends, I have a few doubts, I write you in the hope of a hint. For Mailman 2.1.23 on Debian Stretch: 1) How is it possible from Mailman monitor the delivery errors? Only sysadmin mail server from the logs? 2) Is it possible avoid spam grading, increasing the number of sending sessions/decreasing individual emails sent per session? And eventually your hint? :-) Many thanks! Davide -- cosmogoniA n o p r o v a r e n o f a r e o n o n f a r e n o n c e p r o v a r e

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mailman 3 and freeipa
by Steven Jones March 18, 2019

March 18, 2019

Hi, I cant find anything on this so far but can Mailman3's webui use freeipa as the authentication mechanism? regards Steven

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