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hello people,
please forgive me for asking quesions that i am sure have been repeated over and over. if there is a collection of faq somewhere that answer mine please direct me there. if not i would be grateful indeed for whatever you can tell me.
currently i am still in the phase where i have to decide if mailman is the program of choice and if it is if i will be requiring a dedicated server or if i could make do with a virtual account that has mailman pre-installed.
if some of my questions seem very ignorant programming- and installationwise then that is the case but i learn very fast and have no fear of going into delicate server areas. just throw info at me and i'll figure it from there.
do i need root access to do such things as bugpatch the program (for instance not letting attachments through) and collect my archives if and when i would like to change providers?
can i plug-in a decent "search archives" feature? i saw a link to a perl script posted here, does that go into the cgi-bin or must it be placed in installation specific directories or rather do i have to enter a configuration file not normally accessable in a virtual account?
what must one do to enable "posting from the web"?
i've gathered that when moving my list to mailman i can mass-subscribe users. in what form and when in the procedure are they issued the random passwords i have seen mentioned here?
where is the password file stored? i would like to hitch it together with ftp access permissions.
who knows of a provider offering virtual accounts where one could set up mailman in an accessable and flexible way?????????
thank you for any help.
kind regards menega sabidussi
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Menega Sabidussi wrote:
If the program's installed as root (which it usually is), then yeah you do.
Not possible.
It's something you do from the command line, with root access, and yes you get random passwords.
Somewhere in a Python database file thingy. I have no idea. You'd need a python script to get them out.
bekj
-- : --Hacker-Neophile-Eclectic-Geek-Grrl-Queer-Disabled-Boychick-- : gossamer@tertius.net.au http://www.tertius.net.au/~gossamer/ : Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of : the world. -- Arthur Schopenhauer
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Bek Oberin wrote:
We've got that working in a prototype on our site, and will contribute the patch as soon as we clean it up.
BTW, we're also looking at porting the message storage (and user info, etc) to a PostgreSQL backend. Has anybody else done anything along these lines?
Regards,
Ned Lilly VP Hacker Relations Great Bridge, LLC
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hello,
on january 25th i received helpful responses to my "6 questions" which i'd like to say thanks for. please excuse the long delay and seeming rudeness :( - i was totally out of circulation for a while.
[menega:]
[bekj:]
It's something you do from the command line, with root access, and yes you get random passwords.
ah well... no root access for me, no getting at any of the config files.
a follow-up on this for the total newbies who are stuck with mailman on a virtual account (like i am): when mass-subscribing people in batches of 30 from the web-administration feature a welcome mail will go out to each subscriber containing (as mentioned above) a random password - provided one has turned the welcome mail feature on. this of course alerts subscribers that you are moving them whereupon they - natually curious little beasts :) - will trot over to the site and begin getting in your way while you are still transferring and setting options for them. the only other way i figured was to turn the welcome mail off, feed them all in and then call-up their subscription options pages one-by-weary-one and press the "send me password reminder" button which will then inform them what has been going on.
is there a more efficient method for goodness sakes?
[menega:]
[bekj:] problem.
this brings me to something else. increasingly mailman is the mailing list program of choice for providers offering this feature thrown into their account packages. i have combed through x-hundred providers and contacted roughly a 3rd of them with further questions - most of them were offering mailman, of course in an un-get-attable pre-install. i can't afford a dedicated server for a non-profit organisation like mine but need to run it all under its own domain name. so now i've acquired one of those virtual pre-installed accounts. sigh. more and more people will be bumping into the problems i am tearing my hair out over. now maybe the developers couldn't care less which i would understand as this is not a paid project but i still think it would be a shame not to address these issues.
virtual account mailman list owners need help with:
- getting the archives out so we can move providers;
- getting our grubby little fingers on individualized configuration files;
- stripping the mime mess (we do not have the access to tweak this ourselves);
- stopping attachments so our subscribers won't even be tempted to open anything virii infected.
we need this soon - ideally in an add-on form independant of major updates the provider would have to make. sorry for sounding so ungratefully demanding - you have a really good program here.
thanks again.
regards, menega sabidussi
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/298f33db7a81c8e558e77543496ac107.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Menega Sabidussi wrote:
If the program's installed as root (which it usually is), then yeah you do.
Not possible.
It's something you do from the command line, with root access, and yes you get random passwords.
Somewhere in a Python database file thingy. I have no idea. You'd need a python script to get them out.
bekj
-- : --Hacker-Neophile-Eclectic-Geek-Grrl-Queer-Disabled-Boychick-- : gossamer@tertius.net.au http://www.tertius.net.au/~gossamer/ : Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of : the world. -- Arthur Schopenhauer
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/6439d8fc9dd1b06992f2500944952c71.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Bek Oberin wrote:
We've got that working in a prototype on our site, and will contribute the patch as soon as we clean it up.
BTW, we're also looking at porting the message storage (and user info, etc) to a PostgreSQL backend. Has anybody else done anything along these lines?
Regards,
Ned Lilly VP Hacker Relations Great Bridge, LLC
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/7fc287c3d91db3168ae72e3c7a907ba0.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
hello,
on january 25th i received helpful responses to my "6 questions" which i'd like to say thanks for. please excuse the long delay and seeming rudeness :( - i was totally out of circulation for a while.
[menega:]
[bekj:]
It's something you do from the command line, with root access, and yes you get random passwords.
ah well... no root access for me, no getting at any of the config files.
a follow-up on this for the total newbies who are stuck with mailman on a virtual account (like i am): when mass-subscribing people in batches of 30 from the web-administration feature a welcome mail will go out to each subscriber containing (as mentioned above) a random password - provided one has turned the welcome mail feature on. this of course alerts subscribers that you are moving them whereupon they - natually curious little beasts :) - will trot over to the site and begin getting in your way while you are still transferring and setting options for them. the only other way i figured was to turn the welcome mail off, feed them all in and then call-up their subscription options pages one-by-weary-one and press the "send me password reminder" button which will then inform them what has been going on.
is there a more efficient method for goodness sakes?
[menega:]
[bekj:] problem.
this brings me to something else. increasingly mailman is the mailing list program of choice for providers offering this feature thrown into their account packages. i have combed through x-hundred providers and contacted roughly a 3rd of them with further questions - most of them were offering mailman, of course in an un-get-attable pre-install. i can't afford a dedicated server for a non-profit organisation like mine but need to run it all under its own domain name. so now i've acquired one of those virtual pre-installed accounts. sigh. more and more people will be bumping into the problems i am tearing my hair out over. now maybe the developers couldn't care less which i would understand as this is not a paid project but i still think it would be a shame not to address these issues.
virtual account mailman list owners need help with:
- getting the archives out so we can move providers;
- getting our grubby little fingers on individualized configuration files;
- stripping the mime mess (we do not have the access to tweak this ourselves);
- stopping attachments so our subscribers won't even be tempted to open anything virii infected.
we need this soon - ideally in an add-on form independant of major updates the provider would have to make. sorry for sounding so ungratefully demanding - you have a really good program here.
thanks again.
regards, menega sabidussi
participants (3)
-
Bek Oberin
-
Menega Sabidussi
-
Ned Lilly