Multiple Virtual domains Postfix+Mailman
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I built a new list server and will be moving the lists from the old server to the new. My question is - How do I set it so the old lists i.e. listname@old.domain.com will also still work with the new server that would have a list address of listname@new.domain.com? I hope that makes sense.
In other words if you have two different servers running two different virtual domains can they be combined on one server and not effect old customers ability to send to a list using the old virtual domain?
Let me know if the above paragraphs make no sense and I will see if I can explain it better.
-- Dave
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Dave Pisarek wrote:
I built a new list server and will be moving the lists from the old server to the new. My question is - How do I set it so the old lists i.e. listname@old.domain.com will also still work with the new server that would have a list address of listname@new.domain.com? I hope that makes sense.
In other words if you have two different servers running two different virtual domains can they be combined on one server and not effect old customers ability to send to a list using the old virtual domain?
As long as all the listnames on the server are unique (i.e. no two lists with the same name in different domains), this is no problem. See the section on Virtual domains in Defaults.py (and put your add_virtualhost() lines in mm_cfg.py).
If you want two have two distinct lists with the same name in different domains see http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq04.047.htp but be aware that the patches mentioned there don't work well - running multiple Mailman copies works better.
-- Mark Sapiro <msapiro@value.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5c84acfd82c6c21cb379d4152e1a0119.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Hello,
When will Mailman natively (ie, without patches) support 2 lists with the same name in different domains?
I am presuming that the virtualhosts feature does not support this today; if it does, can someone please reply to this thread to let me (us) know?
Until then, it looks like the best answer is to run separate mailman installs for every independent, virtualhost domain. Is this a fair analysis?
I'm currently running 2.1.6rc4.
-Matt
At 5/15/2005 07:44 PM, Mark Sapiro wrote:
If you want two have two distinct lists with the same name in different domains see http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq04.047.htp but be aware that the patches mentioned there don't work well - running multiple Mailman copies works better.
-- Mark Sapiro <msapiro@value.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/746f7519ba02fb0d815e59f305c53fa2.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Matt England wrote:
When will Mailman natively (ie, without patches) support 2 lists with the same name in different domains?
It's on the ToDo list (http://www.list.org/todo.html), but unless someone comes up with a really good implementation in the mean time, it probably won't happen before Mailman 3.
I am presuming that the virtualhosts feature does not support this today; if it does, can someone please reply to this thread to let me (us) know?
You are correct. As shipped, there is only one global name space for list names regardless of virtual host. The virtual hosts capability supports things like only showing the lists for a given host on that host's listinfo page and allowing editing of the various templates on a 'per virtual host' basis, but the list names still have to be unique sitewide.
Until then, it looks like the best answer is to run separate mailman installs for every independent, virtualhost domain. Is this a fair analysis?
If it is important to allow the same list name in two domains, then yes, I think it is a fair analysis. The various patches for working around this limitation actually implement an 'invisible' list name which has the virtual host name appended to the list name. This should be a viable solution, but the number of complaints from people who've tried the patches leads me to think that the patches are not complete enough for general use.
-- Mark Sapiro <msapiro@value.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5c84acfd82c6c21cb379d4152e1a0119.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Ok. Thanks for the quick response.
Can anyone provide recommendations for configuring the 'mailman' email list...that spans the virtual domains? Should one alias the virtual domain 'mailman' list somehow to the "global" mailman list?
-Matt
At 6/12/2005 11:10 PM, Mark Sapiro wrote:
Matt England wrote:
When will Mailman natively (ie, without patches) support 2 lists with the same name in different domains?
It's on the ToDo list (http://www.list.org/todo.html), but unless someone comes up with a really good implementation in the mean time, it probably won't happen before Mailman 3.
I am presuming that the virtualhosts feature does not support this today; if it does, can someone please reply to this thread to let me (us) know?
You are correct. As shipped, there is only one global name space for list names regardless of virtual host. The virtual hosts capability supports things like only showing the lists for a given host on that host's listinfo page and allowing editing of the various templates on a 'per virtual host' basis, but the list names still have to be unique sitewide.
Until then, it looks like the best answer is to run separate mailman installs for every independent, virtualhost domain. Is this a fair analysis?
If it is important to allow the same list name in two domains, then yes, I think it is a fair analysis. The various patches for working around this limitation actually implement an 'invisible' list name which has the virtual host name appended to the list name. This should be a viable solution, but the number of complaints from people who've tried the patches leads me to think that the patches are not complete enough for general use.
-- Mark Sapiro <msapiro@value.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/mengland%40mengland.net
Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq01.027.htp
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/746f7519ba02fb0d815e59f305c53fa2.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Matt England wrote:
Can anyone provide recommendations for configuring the 'mailman' email list...that spans the virtual domains? Should one alias the virtual domain 'mailman' list somehow to the "global" mailman list?
I assume here you're talking about a single, global Mailman serving all virtual hosts.
You have to have a site 'mailman' list, and it is just one list for the whole site. The list is normally in the DEFAULT_URL_HOST/DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST domain with aliases in that domain. However, on the overview listinfo page and admin page for other domains, there is a reference to the mailman@that.virtual.domain list. For this reason, I think it is best if each domain has aliases for at least the posting address for the site list, and the mailman administrator for each domain should be subscribed to the site list.
-- Mark Sapiro <msapiro@value.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5c84acfd82c6c21cb379d4152e1a0119.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
At 6/13/2005 12:19 AM, Mark Sapiro wrote:
Matt England wrote:
Can anyone provide recommendations for configuring the 'mailman' email list...that spans the virtual domains? Should one alias the virtual domain 'mailman' list somehow to the "global" mailman list?
I assume here you're talking about a single, global Mailman serving all virtual hosts.
Yes.
You have to have a site 'mailman' list, and it is just one list for the whole site. The list is normally in the DEFAULT_URL_HOST/DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST domain with aliases in that domain. However, on the overview listinfo page and admin page for other domains, there is a reference to the mailman@that.virtual.domain list. For this reason, I think it is best if each domain has aliases for at least the posting address for the site list, and the mailman administrator for each domain should be subscribed to the site list.
I think I get the high-level concept here, but I'm fuzzy on some things, including how to implement this.
Is this how one can/should it? In this context:
Default URL and email host domain = lists.default.tld
Virtual URL and email host domain = lists.virtual.tld
Setup mailman@lists.default.tld as usual
...how would I route and web-interface mailman@lists.virtual.tld to mailman@lists.default.tld (assuming this what I should do)? I'm not yet sure exactly how to email alias/route this (although I suspect I can probably do this via my qmail or postfix setup), but I really have little idea about how to make the user/admin web interface correlate these 2 things.
I will also have multiple virtual domains (call them lists.virtual2.tld, etc).
Sorry if this is an ignorant question. Could someone possibly step me through the details of this configuration?
I'm hoping to do this for my "hacky" way to support virtual domains right now in lieu of building a mailman install for every domain (and dealing with the shared mailing list namespace across all domains).
-Matt
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/746f7519ba02fb0d815e59f305c53fa2.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Matt England wrote:
I think I get the high-level concept here, but I'm fuzzy on some things, including how to implement this.
Is this how one can/should it? In this context:
Default URL and email host domain = lists.default.tld Virtual URL and email host domain = lists.virtual.tld Setup mailman@lists.default.tld as usual
Yes. This is what you do. You could just stop here, but there is a small problem. Assume for discussion that the web hosts for these domains are www.default.tld and www.virtual.tld, etc. The problem is that the page at http:/www.virtual.tld/mailman/listinfo will say
If you are having trouble using the lists, please contact mailman@lists.virtual.tld.
and likewise the page at http:/www.virtual.tld/mailman/admin will say
(Send questions and comments to mailman@lists.virtual.tld.)
Now your choices are:
Ignore this (not a good idea if mail to those addresses doesn't work)
Change get_site_email in Mailman/Utils.py to always use DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST
Make the above address(es) work.
...how would I route and web-interface mailman@lists.virtual.tld to mailman@lists.default.tld (assuming this what I should do)? I'm not yet sure exactly how to email alias/route this (although I suspect I can probably do this via my qmail or postfix setup), but I really have little idea about how to make the user/admin web interface correlate these 2 things.
This question relates to choice 3. I don't know the answer in your specific case. It may be that you don't have to do anything. If your mail aliases are global so that for example, an alias like
mailman: "|/var/mailman/mail/mailman post mailman"
(or whatever your equivalent is) applies to all mail to mailman@lists.*.tld regardless of what * is, then you are done. OTOH if aliases are per virtual domain, then you need an alias like the above (and maybe the other mailman-* ones too) for each domain.
The 'pipe' part of the alias is the same in all cases except for the 'post' part which differs for the mailman-* addresses. What you have to ensure is that all mail for the 'mailman' address regardless of domain gets piped to '/var/mailman/mail/mailman post mailman' (or whatever the correct path is) and similarly for the other mailman-* addresses.
I note from another post that you are using qmail-to-mailman.py. I don't know what that does, but you'll have to translate the above into that environment.
I will also have multiple virtual domains (call them lists.virtual2.tld, etc).
This shouldn't be a problem.
-- Mark Sapiro <msapiro@value.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5c84acfd82c6c21cb379d4152e1a0119.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
At 6/12/2005 11:10 PM, Mark Sapiro wrote:
[...] it [full Virtual Domain support] probably won't happen before Mailman 3.
I know open-source projects usually do no react well to this question, but I'll try anyway:
Is there a rough timeline for Mailman 3? eg, which "order of magnitude" shall one use: months or years? Another way to put it: is the Mailman 3 design architecture outlined? done? documented? still a twinkle in it's daddy's eye?
Alternatively, has anyone been asking the Cpanel people about what changes they made to Mailman to support full Virtual Domains (ie, email lists with same name on 2 diff domains via the same Mailman install binary)? Could these sorts of changes possibly make it into a pre-3 release?
For what it's worth: Mailman is the only remaining application on my web server system(s) that does not easily allow me to support a true virtual-domain server (because of the list namespace sharing/pollution across domains). Namely, Apache and qmail support this stuff well (as well the necessary web apps sitting on Apache). Mailman is the only one left in my collection of tools that I'm trying to "virtualize."
-Matt
At 6/12/2005 11:10 PM, Mark Sapiro wrote:
Matt England wrote:
When will Mailman natively (ie, without patches) support 2 lists with the same name in different domains?
It's on the ToDo list (http://www.list.org/todo.html), but unless someone comes up with a really good implementation in the mean time, it probably won't happen before Mailman 3.
I am presuming that the virtualhosts feature does not support this today; if it does, can someone please reply to this thread to let me (us) know?
You are correct. As shipped, there is only one global name space for list names regardless of virtual host. The virtual hosts capability supports things like only showing the lists for a given host on that host's listinfo page and allowing editing of the various templates on a 'per virtual host' basis, but the list names still have to be unique sitewide.
Until then, it looks like the best answer is to run separate mailman installs for every independent, virtualhost domain. Is this a fair analysis?
If it is important to allow the same list name in two domains, then yes, I think it is a fair analysis. The various patches for working around this limitation actually implement an 'invisible' list name which has the virtual host name appended to the list name. This should be a viable solution, but the number of complaints from people who've tried the patches leads me to think that the patches are not complete enough for general use.
-- Mark Sapiro <msapiro@value.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/mengland%40mengland.net
Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq01.027.htp
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/746f7519ba02fb0d815e59f305c53fa2.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Matt England wrote:
Alternatively, has anyone been asking the Cpanel people about what changes they made to Mailman to support full Virtual Domains (ie, email lists with same name on 2 diff domains via the same Mailman install binary)? Could these sorts of changes possibly make it into a pre-3 release?
See the whole thread that starts at http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2005-January/041742.html
-- Mark Sapiro <msapiro@value.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5c84acfd82c6c21cb379d4152e1a0119.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
See the whole thread that starts at http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2005-January/041742.html
Good info, thanks.
In addition: might there be means to contribute money to this effort? (I'm thinking around $100 for now.)
I'm also interested to know how popular such a virtual-domain feature addition (to support separate list namespaces for each domain) might be. I encourage anyone following along to chime in on this email thread with their "vote" for this feature.
-Matt
participants (3)
-
Dave Pisarek
-
Mark Sapiro
-
Matt England