Can Mailman be installed on a free python webhost?

Hi Mailman geeks
I am hoping to install a discussion mailing list. Mailman has what I want, but I question whether I can use Mailman. I do NOT have a mail server. And our group needs to live cheaply, so we are not buying one. There are a few free python webhosts. But I question whether I could install Mailman since the installation instruction says
- add mailman to /etc/passwd
- add mailman to /etc/group
- install on /usr/local/mailman I doubt a free webhost would let me do this.
Has anyone added Mailman to a free webhost? If so, which one? And what workaround used?
If positive, can I assume that I don't need to know python - just use ./configure & make install .
If negative, can you suggest another python, PHP, and/or Perl (script) discussion mailing list that I could load unto a free webhost's website?
Thank in advanced for your hlelp.
Sheng-Chieh

On 11/30/2013 07:48 PM, R. Sheng-Chieh Cheng wrote:
These things can be worked around, but there are other issues that are more problematic.
If positive, can I assume that I don't need to know python - just use ./configure & make install .
Yes, and no. you can just run ./configure with appropriate options. You'll need --prefix=, --with-username=, --with-groupname=, --with-cgi-gid= and --with-mail-gid=, to work around the above. Also, --with-mailhost= and --with-urlhost= are useful, but they can be overridden along with most other defaults in mm_cfg.py. This is where Python knowledge can be useful. mm_cfg.py is where you put all your local configuration stuff to override settings in Defaults.py. For the most part it is straightforward
OPTION = value
stuff, but it is actually Python source and must obey Python syntax and semantics.
Depending on what you can actually do on your hosted server, your major stumbling blocks will probably be
- setting up incoming mail delivery to Mailman
- setting up the web server for Mailman
and possibly
- delivering outbound mail from Mailman.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan

R. Sheng-Chieh Cheng writes:
Everything Mark says is true and authoritative. If something I say seems to conflict with Mark, either you don't understand (feel free to ask!) or Mark's right and I'm wrong. Like all rules, there are exceptions -- but I'm not aware of any.<wink/>
You'd have to ask your host if you can do this. I think your best bet would be to shop around for hosts that already provide Mailman. Second line of attack would be to ask for the necessary privileges or for the host admin to perform the operations for you (unlikely, since the host is free).
However, as Mark says, there are more important difficulties if you don't have "root". Specifically, the mail system is one of the most sensitive components of an Internet host, and you need to change its routing tables to give Mailman a routable mail address. It's possible to work around this, but it would require setting up a "personal" account for each Mailman service (post, subscribe, owner, and several more) that needs a mailbox, which is messy and insecure. If I were a web host I would only allow those I would trust with direct access to the mail system to set up any mailing list.
Installing under /usr/local is just the most common way to do this. The advantage is that an experienced admin who takes over for you can find Mailman's "stuff" can look in /usr/lib/mailman and /var/lib/mailman first, and/or the /usr/local equivalents.
Mailman doesn't require it, an admin with the needed privilege could put it in /home/mailman, or anybody can put it in ~/services/Mailman, or whatever. However, putting it under a real user's home directory is relatively insecure unless that user is quite skilled in security *and* consistently applies those skills to her account.
I am confused. I believe there are free webhosting services that offer Mailman as one of their services.[1] If you're not interested in programming Python, maybe you could use one of those.
All reasonably featureful mailing list managers have similar requirements with respect to mailboxes and access to the mail system's routing function. It is those requirements that imply the existence of the Mailman user and group, and you're not going to find it easy to work around them.
If you really need to restrict yourself to the "web" services of the host, I'm afraid you probably have to give up on having a featureful mailing list manager, and should consider using a web forum instead.
I don't have any recommendations there (I'm an old fogey who detests web forums in my own daily life, though I'm not so conservative I can't recognize that others might find them useful<wink/>).
Footnotes: [1] There are certainly software development hosts that do SourceForge and GNU Savannah immediately come to mind. Unless your project develops open source software you probably wouldn't be allowed to use those hosts, but there are probably others that would host your group.

On 11/30/2013 07:48 PM, R. Sheng-Chieh Cheng wrote:
These things can be worked around, but there are other issues that are more problematic.
If positive, can I assume that I don't need to know python - just use ./configure & make install .
Yes, and no. you can just run ./configure with appropriate options. You'll need --prefix=, --with-username=, --with-groupname=, --with-cgi-gid= and --with-mail-gid=, to work around the above. Also, --with-mailhost= and --with-urlhost= are useful, but they can be overridden along with most other defaults in mm_cfg.py. This is where Python knowledge can be useful. mm_cfg.py is where you put all your local configuration stuff to override settings in Defaults.py. For the most part it is straightforward
OPTION = value
stuff, but it is actually Python source and must obey Python syntax and semantics.
Depending on what you can actually do on your hosted server, your major stumbling blocks will probably be
- setting up incoming mail delivery to Mailman
- setting up the web server for Mailman
and possibly
- delivering outbound mail from Mailman.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan

R. Sheng-Chieh Cheng writes:
Everything Mark says is true and authoritative. If something I say seems to conflict with Mark, either you don't understand (feel free to ask!) or Mark's right and I'm wrong. Like all rules, there are exceptions -- but I'm not aware of any.<wink/>
You'd have to ask your host if you can do this. I think your best bet would be to shop around for hosts that already provide Mailman. Second line of attack would be to ask for the necessary privileges or for the host admin to perform the operations for you (unlikely, since the host is free).
However, as Mark says, there are more important difficulties if you don't have "root". Specifically, the mail system is one of the most sensitive components of an Internet host, and you need to change its routing tables to give Mailman a routable mail address. It's possible to work around this, but it would require setting up a "personal" account for each Mailman service (post, subscribe, owner, and several more) that needs a mailbox, which is messy and insecure. If I were a web host I would only allow those I would trust with direct access to the mail system to set up any mailing list.
Installing under /usr/local is just the most common way to do this. The advantage is that an experienced admin who takes over for you can find Mailman's "stuff" can look in /usr/lib/mailman and /var/lib/mailman first, and/or the /usr/local equivalents.
Mailman doesn't require it, an admin with the needed privilege could put it in /home/mailman, or anybody can put it in ~/services/Mailman, or whatever. However, putting it under a real user's home directory is relatively insecure unless that user is quite skilled in security *and* consistently applies those skills to her account.
I am confused. I believe there are free webhosting services that offer Mailman as one of their services.[1] If you're not interested in programming Python, maybe you could use one of those.
All reasonably featureful mailing list managers have similar requirements with respect to mailboxes and access to the mail system's routing function. It is those requirements that imply the existence of the Mailman user and group, and you're not going to find it easy to work around them.
If you really need to restrict yourself to the "web" services of the host, I'm afraid you probably have to give up on having a featureful mailing list manager, and should consider using a web forum instead.
I don't have any recommendations there (I'm an old fogey who detests web forums in my own daily life, though I'm not so conservative I can't recognize that others might find them useful<wink/>).
Footnotes: [1] There are certainly software development hosts that do SourceForge and GNU Savannah immediately come to mind. Unless your project develops open source software you probably wouldn't be allowed to use those hosts, but there are probably others that would host your group.
participants (3)
-
Mark Sapiro
-
R. Sheng-Chieh Cheng
-
Stephen J. Turnbull