[Mailman-Users] Exim and mailman - HOWTO

[Christian Dysthe]

On 25 Aug, Nigel Metheringham wrote:
> Before I carefully forget this and have to rediscover it when someone 
> asks about it, here is how I am configuring exim to work nicely with 
> mailman.  Configs are for exim 3.0x, however these parts of the config 
> have not changed so it should all work for older versions too.
> 
> It all looks rather longer and more complicated that my previous 
> varient of this for handling smartlist, but thats basically because I 
> found it too hard to use regular expressions and similar to collapse 
> the admin, request and list functions all into one, so there are pretty 
> much replicated sections for each subfunction.
> 
> BTW when a mailman list is created it "magically" appears as a working 
> list to exim - no aliases, no reconfig and no restarting the daemon.
> 
> Config file fragments follow:-
> 
> ## Transports section
> ##
> ## Three transports for list mail, request mail and admin mail
> ## respectively
> ## Mailman is installed in /home/mailman
> ## Mailman is configured to be invoked as user exim
> list_transport:
>            driver = pipe
>            command = "/home/mailman/mail/wrapper post ${lc:$local_part}"
>            current_directory = /home/mailman
>            home_directory = /home/mailman
>            user = exim
>            group = exim
> 
> list_request_transport:
>            driver = pipe
>            command = "/home/mailman/mail/wrapper mailcmd 
> ${lc:$local_part}"
>            current_directory = /home/mailman
>            home_directory = /home/mailman
>            user = exim
>            group = exim
> 
> list_admin_transport:
>            driver = pipe
>            command = "/home/mailman/mail/wrapper mailowner 
> ${lc:$local_part}"
>            current_directory = /home/mailman
>            home_directory = /home/mailman
>            user = exim
>            group = exim
> 
> ### end of transports section fragment
> 
> ## Directors section [this deals with local addresses]
> ## 
> ## First 2 directors rewrite list-owner or owner-list to list-admin
> ## This is only done if the list exists.
> ## List existence checks are done by seeing if the file
> ## /home/mailman/lists/<list>/listinfo.html
> ## exists.  
> 
> list_owner_director:
>    driver = smartuser
>    require_files = /home/mailman/lists/${lc:$local_part}/listinfo.html
>    suffix = "-owner"
>    new_address = "${lc:$local_part}-admin@${domain}"
> 
> owner_list_director:
>    driver = smartuser
>    require_files = /home/mailman/lists/${lc:$local_part}/listinfo.html
>    prefix = "owner-"
>    new_address = "${lc:$local_part}-admin@${domain}"
> 
> ##
> ## Next 3 directors direct admin, request and list mail to the 
> appropriate
> ## transport.  List existence is checked as above.
> 
> list_admin_director:
>    driver = smartuser
>    suffix = -admin
>    require_files = /home/mailman/lists/${lc:$local_part}/listinfo.html
>    transport = list_admin_transport
> 
> list_request_director:
>    driver = smartuser
>    suffix = -request
>    require_files = /home/mailman/lists/${lc:$local_part}/listinfo.html
>    transport = list_request_transport
> 
> list_director:
>    driver = smartuser
>    require_files = /home/mailman/lists/${lc:$local_part}/listinfo.html
>    transport = list_transport
> 
> ## End of directors fragment
> ## End of config files bits
> 
> Basically thats everything.
> Exim should be configured to allow reasonable volume - ie no setting 
> max_recipients down to a silly value, and with normal degrees of 
> security - ie allowing relaying from 127.0.0.1 (thats vital), but 
> pretty much nothing else.  Parallel deliveries and other tweaks can 
> also be used.
> Delay warning messages should be switched off or configured to only 
> happen for non-list mail - unless you like receiving tons of mail when 
> a host is down.
> 
> Problems:-
> 
>  - Mailman's detection of exim bounces needs improving - it really
>    should make use of the extra header information that exim
>    provides.  It also should recognise and deal with or ignore
>    delay warning messages.
>  - List existence is checked on whether there is a listinfo.html
>    file for a list.  If you delete lists by foul means, be aware of
>    this.
> 
> Mailman config is very simple - you just need to make sure that the 
> user in the transport configuration stanzas (exim in this case) is used 
> as the mail user when configuring mailman, and that its installed in 
> the right place.
> 
> Hope this stuff helps, and it would be nice if it could be integrated 
> into the exim and/or mailman FAQs.
> 
> 	Nigel.
> -- 
> [ Nigel Metheringham                  Nigel.Metheringham at VData.co.uk ]
> [ Phone: +44 1423 850000                         Fax +44 1423 858866 ]
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Mailman-Users maillist  -  Mailman-Users at python.org
> http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users
> 
I have been using Exim and Mailman for a while running a couple of
lists. I am running Debian (SLink). I have had no serious problems
making this combo work. I read some mailing list archives about how to
set it up. Pretty straight forward, and as I said, it works great. The
only real change I had to do was to make Exim run as a daemon instead
of from inetd.

Does this mean that this HOWTO doesn't apply for Debian. or have I
missed something? 

-- 
----------------------------------------
Regards,
Christian Dysthe
E-mail: cdysthe at oddbird.dyndns.org
Web: http://oddbird.dyndns.org/cdysthe/
ICQ 3945810
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