Question about account ownership, etc.
Hi guys,
I am an officer in a non-profit organization that currently uses your wonderful software for mailing lists for our members, officers, programs, etc.
We've got a possible issue coming down the pike, and I am hoping someone there can give me some answers.
If something should happen to the volunteer who runs our email lists and we, the remaining officers, do not have access to the lists, what would Python need from us to prove ownership of said email lists and to transfer administrative control of all our lists to a new person?
Thanks, Dana
Dana Runkle writes:
If something should happen to the volunteer who runs our email lists and we, the remaining officers, do not have access to the lists, what would Python need from us to prove ownership of said email lists and to transfer administrative control of all our lists to a new person?
Neither Python nor Mailman has any relation to the data in your list. Python provides a software development environment, and Mailman provides mailing list management and post distribution software. This software is distributed under "open source" licenses, so that anybody can download and use it without further permission from Python or Mailman (subject to certain mild restrictions on redistribution).
However, the software actually runs on somebody else's computer, and almost certainly, that is where your data is stored as well. To get access to that, you need to get access to that computer.
In many cases, the computer in question is owned and managed by an ISP rather than as somebody's personal property. In that case you need to find out who the ISP is, and contact them. ISPs are a somewhat regulated part of the telecommunications industry, but they are responsible primarily to the person who pays them, presumably your volunteer. If the lists are hosted, and data stored, on a computer owned and operated by your volunteer, you will need to deal with that person more or less directly.
If you don't know the ISP, anybody with a little bit of network expertise (including most Linux or Unix users) can help you trace posts back to the distribution point.
I can envision where the question is coming from - because we deal with the same fears.
Our employees manage the lists and mailman software. Our other employees manage the servers and the network.
If we loose an employee with the password to mailman, how do we carry on? The data is 'locked' behind a now lost password. How do we reset the password, when the real password is gone?
Thanks!
Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
Dana Runkle writes:
If something should happen to the volunteer who runs our email lists and we, the remaining officers, do not have access to the lists, what would Python need from us to prove ownership of said email lists and to transfer administrative control of all our lists to a new person?
Neither Python nor Mailman has any relation to the data in your list. Python provides a software development environment, and Mailman provides mailing list management and post distribution software. This software is distributed under "open source" licenses, so that anybody can download and use it without further permission from Python or Mailman (subject to certain mild restrictions on redistribution).
However, the software actually runs on somebody else's computer, and almost certainly, that is where your data is stored as well. To get access to that, you need to get access to that computer.
In many cases, the computer in question is owned and managed by an ISP rather than as somebody's personal property. In that case you need to find out who the ISP is, and contact them. ISPs are a somewhat regulated part of the telecommunications industry, but they are responsible primarily to the person who pays them, presumably your volunteer. If the lists are hosted, and data stored, on a computer owned and operated by your volunteer, you will need to deal with that person more or less directly.
If you don't know the ISP, anybody with a little bit of network expertise (including most Linux or Unix users) can help you trace posts back to the distribution point.
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-- Have a Good day!
Dick Draves System Administrator Bard College
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Richard Draves writes:
If we loose an employee with the password to mailman, how do we carry on? The data is 'locked' behind a now lost password. How do we reset the password, when the real password is gone?
As long as you have shell access to the mailman installation, you can change the site password with /usr/lib/mailman/bin/mmsitepass (may be located elsewhere depending on your installation). That allows access to all admin screens, from which you can do anything, including resetting passwords. I don't recall offhand where the various password resetting options are.
On Aug 17, 2009, at 12:26 PM, Dana Runkle wrote:
If something should happen to the volunteer who runs our email lists
and we, the remaining officers, do not have access to the lists,
what would Python need from us to prove ownership of said email
lists and to transfer administrative control of all our lists to a
new person?
Mailman has a "site administrator" password. Ideally, the person who
operates things now can just let you know what that password is. With
that password, you can do all of the list administration, including
creating lists and resetting list passwords.
If you cannot get that from the current site administrator, then you
(or someone on your behalf) needs to be able to log on (shell access)
to the machine running Mailman. In the mailman directory, there will
be a subdirectory called bin. Use the command there
./mmsitepass NEW-PASSWORD
The user on the host who runs that command-line command will need to
have appropriate privileges. If you don't have those, you will need
to talk to whoever (hosting company?) runs that machine.
-j
-- Jeffrey Goldberg http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/
participants (4)
-
Dana Runkle -
Jeffrey Goldberg -
Richard Draves -
Stephen J. Turnbull