Mailman 3 October 2020 - Mailman-Users

Editing Mailman's text files
by Pete Bell May 8, 2024

May 8, 2024

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

3 3

Running two list with same email prefix
by Andrea Cappelli Feb. 27, 2024

Feb. 27, 2024

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?

4 5

Hide list address?
by Ricardo Kleemann Nov. 17, 2023

Nov. 17, 2023

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.

7 6

Using cronjob to remove and add members to a mailing list
by Jerry Barnabee Aug. 10, 2022

Aug. 10, 2022

I want to be able to run a cronjob on my server that uses a php script to add new users and/or remove users from a mailing list. Not having any luck finding any simple examples. My thought is that the php script would get email addresses from a database (which I can do) and then feed them to a mailman command line to either add or remove a user. The cronjob is entered via Cpanel. Have several cronjobs that modify databases but have never tried something that would actually execute a unix command. Thanks, Pineyscripter

3 3

Problem with outlook.com
by nikos June 15, 2022

June 15, 2022

Hello list. For some reason none of hotmail or outlook users don't receive any of our newsletter. Finally all of them auto unsubscribe. The following is an error received form protection.outlook.com: Remote Server returned '550 5.6.0 CAT.InvalidContent.Exception: ExchangeDataException, Decoding of header Subject failed+ADs- raw value: +AFs-Ps+AF0- +AD0-?iso8859-7?b?wer98fnz5yDF8OX05enh6t7yIOXq5N7r+-fPn8iDz9Oft?+AD0-; cannot handle content of message That happened since September 10th this year. Before, all received without problem. Any suggestions? Thank you in advance. Nikos.

5 9

Re: [Mailman-Users] Automate Moderator Functions
by Andre de Azevedo Cunha April 18, 2022

April 18, 2022

Hi, i`m trying to reject messages bigger then MAX_MESSAGE_SIZE. I configured my Hold.py was described bellow: replaced hold_for_approval(mlist, msg, msgdata, _ MessageTooBig(bodylen,_mlist.max_message_size)) with rej = MessageTooBig(bodylen, mlist.max_message_size) _ raise Errors.RejectMessage, rej.reason_notice_ The message was rejected, but the sender dont receive any notify about that. The mailman vette log too. How can i solve this? Thanks, André Dennis Putnam wrote: > >I am getting back to this and I have a question about maintenance. What >is the correct way to modify this so that it will not get destroyed by >updates? There are two ways to proceed. You can modify Mailman/Handlers/Hold.py itself, but before overwriting it, make a "diff -u" between the base Hold.py and your modified version to use as a patch to apply after any upgrade. A better way is to leave Hold.py unchanged and make your own edited version as say Mailman/Handlers/MyHold.py. Then you can replace the base Hold.py Module with your MyHold.py by putting GLOBAL_PIPELINE[GLOBAL_PIPELINE.index('Hold')] = 'MyHold' in mm_cfg.py. Note that if you are going to do this, and you want also to move MimeDel before Hold, you must either put the above line after the lines GLOBAL_PIPELINE.remove('MimeDel') GLOBAL_PIPELINE.insert(GLOBAL_PIPELINE.index('Hold'), 'MimeDel') in mm_cfg.py or put it before, but then also change GLOBAL_PIPELINE.insert(GLOBAL_PIPELINE.index('Hold'), 'MimeDel') to GLOBAL_PIPELINE.insert(GLOBAL_PIPELINE.index('MyHold'), 'MimeDel') I recommend the former as in # # Put MimeDel ahead of Hold so "too big" is based on content filtered # message. # GLOBAL_PIPELINE.remove('MimeDel') GLOBAL_PIPELINE.insert(GLOBAL_PIPELINE.index('Hold'), 'MimeDel') # # Replace Hold with local version # GLOBAL_PIPELINE[GLOBAL_PIPELINE.index('Hold')] = 'MyHold' Since mm_cfg.py survives upgrades, this should survive. >Also does this same procedure apply to other automatic rejections such >as implicit destination? >On 9/24/2012 8:43 PM, Mark Sapiro wrote: >> >> To automatically reject or discard messages that exceed the list's size >> limit, find the section of the Mailman/Handlers/Hold.py that ends with >> the lines >> >> >> if bodylen/1024.0 > mlist.max_message_size: >> hold_for_approval(mlist, msg, msgdata, >> MessageTooBig(bodylen, >> mlist.max_message_size)) >> # no return >> >> (there is one wrapped line in the above) and replace >> >> hold_for_approval(mlist, msg, msgdata, >> MessageTooBig(bodylen, >> mlist.max_message_size)) >> >> with >> >> rej = MessageTooBig(bodylen, mlist.max_message_size)) >> raise Errors.RejectMessage, rej.reason_notice >> >> to reject the message or with >> >> raise Errors.DiscardMessage >> >> to discard the message. Note that this will not honor the list's >> forward_auto_discards setting. to do that you would need to put >> >> from Mailman.Handlers.Moderate import do_discard >> >> with the other imports near the beginning of the >> Mailman.Handlers.hold.py module and then replace the lines with >> >> do_discard(mlist, msg) Yes, similar changes would apply to other holds in Hold.py. -- Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net [1]> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan -- Links: ------ [1] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users

2 11

Newbie User
by David Elliott March 18, 2022

March 18, 2022

Hi, I am a newbie to Mailman and cpanel and I need some help, please. I have set up a mailing list for my tennis club (about 300 on list) and it seems to work ok BUT each recipient only sees the mailing list name rather than his own email name in the 'to' box. One of the recipients recently did a 'reply to all' and consequently sent his reply to the whole mailing list. I'm sure there must be a way to prevent this but I can't find it! David Elliott

5 6

Subscription Requests
by nikos June 2, 2021

June 2, 2021

Hello list. I'm receiving a lot of fake Subscription Requests and spend time to discard them. 1. how can I "lock" lists not to receive requests except administrator's mass subscription? 2. how can I mass discard those request from console? Thank you in advance, Nikos.

6 13

Add "sender's name/email" to BODY of mail as header?
by Mal Feb. 17, 2021

Feb. 17, 2021

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

9 14

Non-member regexps
by Daniel Krause Feb. 12, 2021

Feb. 12, 2021

Good Day We are using mailman 3, and would like to whitelist a domain for acceptance of messages as non-members. It seems possible from my online searches, I have also tried with an online python regex tester(https://www.regextester.com/94044), but I have not managed to be successful. Below are 2 examples I have tried ^.+(a)noldor\.co\.za$ ^[a-zA-Z0-9_.+-]+@(?:(?:[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.)?[a-zA-Z]+\.)?noldor\.co\.za$ ^.+(a)gmail.com$ ^.*gmail\.com$ Regards -- *Daniel Krause* *Head of IT* *Office: **+27 87 238 4238* <0872384238> *Mobile : **+971 55 418 4733* <0971554184733> *Email: **daniel(a)noldor.co.za* <daniel(a)noldor.co.za> *Web: **www.noldor.co.za* <http://www.noldor.co.za/>

4 8

Migrating Mailman Lists from One Server to Another
by Onyeibo Oku Nov. 15, 2020

Nov. 15, 2020

Greeting, Is there a recommended a stable or reliable approach for migrating Mailman lists from one server to another? I have tried two methods already and, in both cases, the resulting lists were buggy. The source lists are not live (i.e. old server/host is no longer accessible). However, we copied all files/folders from the previous /var/lib/mailman/ to a folder in our new server. I guess the scenario rules out Method-#1 described on https://wiki.list.org/DOC/4.70%20How%20do%20I%20change%20the%20name%20of%20… I also tried the steps illustrated on https://debian-administration.org/article/567/Migrating_mailman_lists. That gave me lots of errors pertaining to permissions despite running 'check_perms -f' (makes me wonder what the recommended permissions/ownership for files in /var/lib/mailman/ would be). In the end, the lists were visible via the web interface but I couldn't log into administration from there (I got an error page ... something about Mailman being buggy). Some other pages wouldn't open too. I got similar results after following https://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-developers@python.org/msg03127.html Method #2 at https://wiki.list.org/DOC/4.70%20How%20do%20I%20change%20the%20name%20of%20… sounds appealing. I tried the script but python2 was looking for a path module. Is that script still supported? In any case, I'd appreciate any help I can get to bring our lists back online. Regards Onyeibo

2 5

Can not find the "msgid" for a specific mail for mailman administrator.
by Masaharu Kawada Oct. 29, 2020

Oct. 29, 2020

Dear mailman-users list, I have a question on how to modify the content of mail sent out to mailman administrator. Looking into /usr/lib/mailman/messages/ja/LC_MESSAGES/mailman.po, the following two lines can be found. 1. msgid "%(realname)s moderator request check result" 2. msgid "" "Notice: %(discarded)d old request(s) automatically expired.\n" The first line looks to be the mail title and the second line looks to be the content of the mail titled with the "%(realname)s moderator request check result" as the first line. However, I can not find the "msgid" in the second line in anywhere like /etc/mailman/templates/en/* where I think the "msgid(s)" used for mail content are supposed to be filed under /etc/mailman/templates/en/ directory such as /etc/mailman/templates/en/checkdbs.txt. To modify the "msgid" in the second line from "Notice: %(discarded)d old request(s) automatically expired.\n" to something other than that, I need to find out where the "msgid" is. Could anyone in the list give me a help on this? Thanks, Masaharu

2 2

Group Mismatch Error
by Dennis Putnam Oct. 25, 2020

Oct. 25, 2020

I am getting this error: <cufsalumni(a)localhost.localdomain> (expanded from <cufsalumni@localhost>): Command died with status 2: "/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman post cufsalumni". Command output: Group mismatch error. Mailman expected the mail wrapper script to be executed as group "nobody", but the system's mail server executed the mail script as group "mailman". Try tweaking the mail server to run the script as group "nobody", or re-run configure, providing the command line option `--with-mail-gid=mailman'. When I upgraded to this version of Mailman (2.1.34) I specified the configure options per the article (https://wiki.list.org/x/17892071) for RHEL. The group for '/usr/lib/mailman/mail/mailman' is indeed 'nobody'. What is this error trying to tell me. It is not clear what wrapper it is talking about since the group on the indicated script is correct.

2 4

Re: Settings for "monthly password reminders", etc.
by H Ian Zhang Oct. 23, 2020

Oct. 23, 2020

Thank you for the explanations, Mark. We'll be able to live with the settings as they are, no problem. :) Regards: Ian Zhang

1 0

Settings for "monthly password reminders", etc.
by H Ian Zhang Oct. 23, 2020

Oct. 23, 2020

Hello Mark, we are testing a new mailing list (our provider currently makes Mailman 2.1.33 available). On the "General Options" page for the list, there is the setting "Send monthly password reminders?" We set this to "No" when we configured the list (before we had any subscribers). Now we have a few test subscribers. When they log in to their respective subscription pages, they will find the setting "Get password reminder email for this list?" And in all observed cases this is set to "Yes". Similarly, on the "Digest Options" page there is the setting "When receiving digests, which format is default?" And regardless of whether this is set to "Plain" or "Mime", subscribers logging in to their respective subscription pages will see there the same parameter invariably set to "Mime". In terms of logic, this is an unsatisfactory situation: either, if the general settings overrule individual setting, then subscribers are being misled, because they think they have choices when they actually don't, or, if the individual settings have precedence, then list managers are being misled, because they are given the impression that they are controlling certain paramaters when they actually don't. What are we overlooking here? Thank you in advance for your assistance! Regards: Ian Zhang --

2 1

Settings for "monthly password reminders"
by H Ian Zhang Oct. 23, 2020

Oct. 23, 2020

Hello Mark, we are testing a new mailing list (our provider currently makes Mailman 2.1.33 available). On the "General Options" page for the list, there is the setting "Send monthly password reminders?" We set this to "No" when we configured the list (before we had any subscribers). Now we have a few test subscribers. When they log in to their respective subscription pages, they will find the setting "Get password reminder email for this list?" And in all observed cases this is set to "Yes". Similarly, on the "Digest Options" page there is the setting "When receiving digests, which format is default?" And regardless of whether this is set to "Plain" or "Mime", subscribers logging in to their respective subscription pages will see there the same parameter invariably set to "Mime". In terms of logic, this is an unsatisfactory situation: either, if the general settings overrule individual setting, then subscribers are being misled, because they think they have choices when they actually don't, or, if the individual settings have precedence, then list managers are being misled, because they are given the impression that they are controlling certain paramaters when they actually don't. What are we overlooking here? Thank you in advance for your assistance! Regards: Ian Zhang --

1 0

Re: 7bit vs. 8bit settings / http vs https
by H Ian Zhang Oct. 22, 2020

Oct. 22, 2020

Thank you for the specifics on both questions, Mark! I'll follow up accordingly. > If you as list admin set the list's preferred language to French, > the charset will be iso-8859-1. The list will only carry messages in English and French, so this looks like a good option. If you don't see follow-up questions here it means we fixed the problems. :) Regards: Ian Zhang

1 0

http vs https
by H Ian Zhang Oct. 22, 2020

Oct. 22, 2020

Hi again, we also noticed that subscribed users receive a descriptive message with such entries as General information about the mailing list is available at: [URL1] and If you want to change your options (eg, switch to or from digest mode, temporarily stop delivery of list message to your address, etc.), please visit your subscription page at: [URL2] There is a problem, howevdr, since [URL#] starts with 'http', while the domain of the new list has the certificate for secure connections, and URLs starting with 'https' therefore work - and the use of 'https' is very much desired. As I mentioned, we have no control over the server, but is there a way for our provider to have all relevant URLs start with 'https'? Thanks again and regards: Ian Zhang

2 1

7bit vs. 8bit settings
by H Ian Zhang Oct. 22, 2020

Oct. 22, 2020

Hi, when setting up a new mailing list on a rented (shared) server, we noticed that French accented letters are dropped. The "hidden" headers tell us the following: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mailman 2.1.33 Can this setup be changed (technoically speaking) to "UTF-8" and 8bit encoding? We have no control over the serverm, but the provider's support team is responsive and helpful - how would I best ask them to make the change to UTF-8 happen? Thanks in advance! Regards: Ian Zhang

2 1

Re: How to prevent moderation queue from rewriting From:-field?
by Thomas Gramstad Oct. 20, 2020

Oct. 20, 2020

On Sun, 18 Oct 2020, Mark Sapiro wrote: > On 10/18/20 2:12 PM, Thomas Gramstad wrote: >> When a message to one of my unmoderated lists for some reason ends up in >> the moderation queue and I approve it, somehow the From:-field is >> rewritten like this: >> >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: Helge Høivik via Biblioteknorge >> <biblioteknorge(a)mailman.kunnskapsallmenning.no> >> >> >> How can I prevent this from happening, so that the original From: field >> is preserved unchanged, as if the message went straight through to the >> list? > > This appears to be DMARC mitigation. What are your settings for General > Options -> from_is_list x No > and Privacy options... -> Sender filters -> dmarc_*moderation_action ? x Munge From Yeah, that's it. I suppose I could change that to Accept? But I found out that this is not a problem, because Reply-To: still works the way it should. The via thing does not degrade Reply-To: (unlike something similar-looking in Eudora some years ago). > Note that if this From: munging only occurs on messages which are held for > moderation and approved and does not happen for messages From: the same > address which are not held for moderation then I don't understand what could > be the cause. (No, the original sample size was too small.) Thanks, Thomas Gramstad

2 1

transferring a mailman2 list to a new server
by Steven Jones Oct. 20, 2020

Oct. 20, 2020

Hi, Just doing some proof of concept by moving a test list to a new server. Seems to work fine except once in the list web ui everytime I move to a new sub-emu I have to keep putting in the password, I have never seen this before, what have I missed? regards Steven

2 1

site wide password does not work mailman2
by Steven Jones Oct. 20, 2020

Oct. 20, 2020

Hi, My site password did not work after building/installing so I reset in with /usr/lib/mailman/bin/mmsitepass and it still does not work! Is there a way to generate it manually? by not using mmsitepass? regards Steven

2 1

How to prevent moderation queue from rewriting From:-field?
by Thomas Gramstad Oct. 19, 2020

Oct. 19, 2020

When a message to one of my unmoderated lists for some reason ends up in the moderation queue and I approve it, somehow the From:-field is rewritten like this: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Helge Høivik via Biblioteknorge <biblioteknorge(a)mailman.kunnskapsallmenning.no> How can I prevent this from happening, so that the original From: field is preserved unchanged, as if the message went straight through to the list? Thomas Gramstad

2 1

Topic hack to streamline use of topics.
by Grant Taylor Oct. 17, 2020

Oct. 17, 2020

While on the topic of topics ... ;-) I implemented a hack in my LDA to search the body of messages for specific keywords. When one (or more) of the keywords is found, it adds a specific value to the Topics: header. This way, posters don't have to worry about defining the topics before they hit send. It also allows me to be more granular and flexible at the same time. I can create an "email" topic that will match on Mailman, Sendmail, Microsoft Exchange, GroupWise, etc. (Sure, there's a little wiggle room in the pattern matching and logic.) This has largely worked out very well for the lists that I've applied it to. -- Grant. . . . unix || die

3 3

Help with Topics
by Chip Davis Oct. 16, 2020

Oct. 16, 2020

[Re-sent after not getting my copy back from the listserver after five hours.] I'm trying to set up Topics for a Mailman 2.1.33 list I administer, and I'm a tad confused. There appears to be no combination of options to allow a member of a list to see _only_ non-topic-specific postings. If you select one or more topics of interest, you will receive the postings under those topics. You will not receive any _topic-specific_ postings that do not match your selections. Furthermore, if you have also set "Do you want to receive messages that do not match any topic filter?" to 'Yes', you will also receive all messages that are _not_ associated with a topic. Otherwise, you will receive _only_ the postings associated with your selected topics. (This appears to function as expected.) However, if you have not selected any topics, you will receive all postings, whether topic-specific or not, regardless the setting of "Do you want to receive messages that do not match any topic filter?". I would like to offer the members of my lists the option of receiving: 1. All of the postings to the list [All topic categories selected + no-match filter=Yes] 2. Specific topics and all non-topic postings [At least one topic category selected + no-match filter=Yes] 3. Specific topics only [At least one topic category selected + no-match filter=No] 4. Only _non-topic_ postings [No topic categories selected + no-match filter=No] Apparently that is not the heuristic being applied. If no topic categories are selected, the no-match filter setting is ignored (i.e. defaults to 'Yes') effectively delivering all listserver traffic to that user, and eliminating option 4. This is "as documented" and embarrassingly empirically demonstrated. :-/ There seems to be no obvious way to say "I want to see only those postings that are not topic-specific". If I put the list's subject_prefix in as the Topic1 regexp (escaped as necessary), would the member be able to select it and specify 'no-match filter=No' to receive _only_ the non-topic-specific postings? (I would test this question myself, but see "embarrassingly empirically demonstrated", above.) If this question has already been addressed in a document somewhere, please point me to it. Thanks! -Chip-

4 9