Mailman won't 'start' - but is working?
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/374ba076bead84905266162abc728fb8.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Ok, maybe this is an issue with my understanding, but...
I am on a gentoo system, trying to clean up some things (inherited) - duplicates, etc. I had an old version of Mailman (2.1.7) and 2.1.9 installed.
I removed the 2.1.7 version with no apparent problems, but then updated 2.1.9 to the latest rev - 2.1.9-r2 (this is in the testing/unstable repo on gentoo, so maybe this is a bug with this package)...
They aren't supposed to make major changes between minor rev bumps like this, but they did this time:
The install directory was changed from /usr/local/mailman to /usr/lib64/mailman.
They also split up some of the stuff... if I'm not mistaken, the following directories used to be in the main /usr/local/mailman:
archives data lists locks logs qfiles spam
but they all got moved to /var/lib/mailman...
I got all of this sorted (fixed the paths in the aliases files and in main.cf for postfix), and mailman seems to be working fine - I send a message to a list, I see it processed in the log, and the message is delivered to all list members... but...
If I try to 'start' mailman, it won't start - I get the (!!) error. If I try to stop it, it says it isn't started.
What am I missing?
--
Best regards,
Charles
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/374ba076bead84905266162abc728fb8.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Charles Marcus, on 12/29/2007 11:34 AM, said the following:
Hmmm... apparently the qrunner is running - if I manually issue the mailmanct stop or -s start commands, it appears to work...
I did verify these are correct in the startup script (see below) - but I also notice two things: it is dated from 2004, and it is issuing the command as 'su - mailman', but I am issuing the commands directly as root - so maybe this script didn't get updated properly?
#!/sbin/runscript # Copyright 1999-2004 Gentoo Foundation # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 # $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/net-mail/mailman/files/mailman.rc,v 1.5 2004/07/14 23:50:52 agriffis Exp $
depend() { need net use logger }
start() { ebegin "Starting mailman" su - mailman -c 'bin/mailmanctl -s start' >/dev/null 2>&1 eend $? }
stop() { ebegin "Stopping mailman" su - mailman -c 'bin/mailmanctl stop' >/dev/null 2>&1 eend $? }
svc_restart() { ebegin "Restarting mailman" su - mailman -c 'bin/mailmanctl restart' >/dev/null 2>&1 eend $? }
Tia for any pointers and/or whacks with a clue-stick...
--
Best regards,
Charles
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/374ba076bead84905266162abc728fb8.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Anyone? This is actually now a little worse - I updated the kernel (from 2.6.17 to 2.6.23), and mailman still won't start (gives me the [ !! ] error when I issue the /etc/init.d/mailman start command anad at boot time) - but now, the qrunner obviously isn't starting either, because the lists weren't responding until I issued a manual (as root) "/usr/lib64/mailmanctl -s start", after which all pending messages are delivered.
I really need a little help here... could this be some kind of permissions or path problem? The location of the /bin dorectory was changed in this package update... where would I check the path of the 'bin' directory? Although, I did try to change the init script path to the full /usr/lib64/mailman/bin/mailmanctl path...
check_perms shows no problems...
Init script is shown below... this is on a Gentoo box, and I've asked on their forums, but thought I'd ask here too...
Charles Marcus, on 12/29/2007 12:16 PM, said the following:
--
Best regards,
Charles
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/7bdecdef03708b218939094eb05e8b35.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On 1/7/08, Charles Marcus wrote:
Everything I've seen on this subject leads me to believe that the problems you're having are more to do with discrepancies between the portage system you're using, the startup scripts that they provide, kernel updates you've applied, etc....
None of the specific error messages or startup scripts you've reported on are actually coming from Mailman itself -- they're coming from Gentoo-specific tools, and we're not going to be able to help you with those.
This would explain why you haven't seen any messages from anyone else that are in response to your posts -- all your questions seem to be very Gentoo-specific, and don't really have anything to do with Mailman itself.
Our Mailman-specific troubleshooting processes are described in the FAQ Wizard, and if you search for "troubleshoot", you should turn them up.
In particular, before we would be likely to be able to provide any assistance to you, we would need to know what is showing up in all your various Mailman and MTA logs, especially regarding the startup process.
Make sure to also check out the other FAQ Wizard entries that are referenced at the top of FAQ 4.78.
-- Brad Knowles <brad@shub-internet.org> LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu>
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/56f108518d7ee2544412cc80978e3182.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Charles Marcus wrote:
I'm trying to be patient, but NO ONE has a clue or idea where I might look to solve this?
As Brad says, we don't.
Here is an example of the init.d/mailman script that we distribute after 'configure'.
#!/bin/sh
#
# mailman This shell script starts and stops GNU Mailman.
#
# Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Free Software Foundation, Inc.
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
# modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
# as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
# of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
# Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
02110-1301, USA.
#
# Copy this file to /etc/init.d/ (or /etc/rc.d/init.d/ depending on
# your system) and activate it as such:
#
# On Debian, type "update-rc.d mailman defaults"
# On RedHat, and derivatives, install with "chkconfig --add mailman"
#
# chkconfig: 2345 98 12
# description: Mailman is the GNU Mailing List Manager, a program that
# manages electronic mail discussion groups. For more
# on GNU Mailman see http://www.list.org
# processname: mailmanctl
# config: /usr/local/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py
# pidfile: /usr/local/mailman/data/master-qrunner.pid
PYTHON=/usr/bin/python MAILMANHOME=/usr/local/mailman MAILMANCTL=$MAILMANHOME/bin/mailmanctl
case "$1" in 'start') #rm -f $MAILMANHOME/locks/* $PYTHON $MAILMANCTL -s -q start ;;
'stop') $PYTHON $MAILMANCTL -q stop ;;
'restart') $PYTHON $MAILMANCTL -q restart ;;
esac exit 0
Yours has relative paths, but you said you tried absolute paths too. Your's also does su - mailman which is not needed (except for setting the current directory to mailman's home for the relative paths) as mailmanctl is designed to be run by root. There are other differences, but I don't see why yours won't start mailman if the essentially identical mailmanctl command typed by hand will.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/374ba076bead84905266162abc728fb8.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Charles Marcus, on 12/29/2007 11:34 AM, said the following:
Hmmm... apparently the qrunner is running - if I manually issue the mailmanct stop or -s start commands, it appears to work...
I did verify these are correct in the startup script (see below) - but I also notice two things: it is dated from 2004, and it is issuing the command as 'su - mailman', but I am issuing the commands directly as root - so maybe this script didn't get updated properly?
#!/sbin/runscript # Copyright 1999-2004 Gentoo Foundation # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 # $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/net-mail/mailman/files/mailman.rc,v 1.5 2004/07/14 23:50:52 agriffis Exp $
depend() { need net use logger }
start() { ebegin "Starting mailman" su - mailman -c 'bin/mailmanctl -s start' >/dev/null 2>&1 eend $? }
stop() { ebegin "Stopping mailman" su - mailman -c 'bin/mailmanctl stop' >/dev/null 2>&1 eend $? }
svc_restart() { ebegin "Restarting mailman" su - mailman -c 'bin/mailmanctl restart' >/dev/null 2>&1 eend $? }
Tia for any pointers and/or whacks with a clue-stick...
--
Best regards,
Charles
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/374ba076bead84905266162abc728fb8.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Anyone? This is actually now a little worse - I updated the kernel (from 2.6.17 to 2.6.23), and mailman still won't start (gives me the [ !! ] error when I issue the /etc/init.d/mailman start command anad at boot time) - but now, the qrunner obviously isn't starting either, because the lists weren't responding until I issued a manual (as root) "/usr/lib64/mailmanctl -s start", after which all pending messages are delivered.
I really need a little help here... could this be some kind of permissions or path problem? The location of the /bin dorectory was changed in this package update... where would I check the path of the 'bin' directory? Although, I did try to change the init script path to the full /usr/lib64/mailman/bin/mailmanctl path...
check_perms shows no problems...
Init script is shown below... this is on a Gentoo box, and I've asked on their forums, but thought I'd ask here too...
Charles Marcus, on 12/29/2007 12:16 PM, said the following:
--
Best regards,
Charles
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/7bdecdef03708b218939094eb05e8b35.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On 1/7/08, Charles Marcus wrote:
Everything I've seen on this subject leads me to believe that the problems you're having are more to do with discrepancies between the portage system you're using, the startup scripts that they provide, kernel updates you've applied, etc....
None of the specific error messages or startup scripts you've reported on are actually coming from Mailman itself -- they're coming from Gentoo-specific tools, and we're not going to be able to help you with those.
This would explain why you haven't seen any messages from anyone else that are in response to your posts -- all your questions seem to be very Gentoo-specific, and don't really have anything to do with Mailman itself.
Our Mailman-specific troubleshooting processes are described in the FAQ Wizard, and if you search for "troubleshoot", you should turn them up.
In particular, before we would be likely to be able to provide any assistance to you, we would need to know what is showing up in all your various Mailman and MTA logs, especially regarding the startup process.
Make sure to also check out the other FAQ Wizard entries that are referenced at the top of FAQ 4.78.
-- Brad Knowles <brad@shub-internet.org> LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu>
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/56f108518d7ee2544412cc80978e3182.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Charles Marcus wrote:
I'm trying to be patient, but NO ONE has a clue or idea where I might look to solve this?
As Brad says, we don't.
Here is an example of the init.d/mailman script that we distribute after 'configure'.
#!/bin/sh
#
# mailman This shell script starts and stops GNU Mailman.
#
# Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Free Software Foundation, Inc.
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
# modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
# as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
# of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
# Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
02110-1301, USA.
#
# Copy this file to /etc/init.d/ (or /etc/rc.d/init.d/ depending on
# your system) and activate it as such:
#
# On Debian, type "update-rc.d mailman defaults"
# On RedHat, and derivatives, install with "chkconfig --add mailman"
#
# chkconfig: 2345 98 12
# description: Mailman is the GNU Mailing List Manager, a program that
# manages electronic mail discussion groups. For more
# on GNU Mailman see http://www.list.org
# processname: mailmanctl
# config: /usr/local/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py
# pidfile: /usr/local/mailman/data/master-qrunner.pid
PYTHON=/usr/bin/python MAILMANHOME=/usr/local/mailman MAILMANCTL=$MAILMANHOME/bin/mailmanctl
case "$1" in 'start') #rm -f $MAILMANHOME/locks/* $PYTHON $MAILMANCTL -s -q start ;;
'stop') $PYTHON $MAILMANCTL -q stop ;;
'restart') $PYTHON $MAILMANCTL -q restart ;;
esac exit 0
Yours has relative paths, but you said you tried absolute paths too. Your's also does su - mailman which is not needed (except for setting the current directory to mailman's home for the relative paths) as mailmanctl is designed to be run by root. There are other differences, but I don't see why yours won't start mailman if the essentially identical mailmanctl command typed by hand will.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
participants (3)
-
Brad Knowles
-
Charles Marcus
-
Mark Sapiro