[Mailman-Users] How to rename a list

[Barry A. Warsaw]

A while ago Michael asked about the canonical way to rename a mailing
list.  Turns out that I had to do this for one of the zope.org lists,
although I didn't get to it before my vacation.  As an exercise I
decided to write up the steps as a FAQ entry, then move the zope.org
list and see how close I got.  I was suprised that I didn't have to
change a thing, but the real test will be for one of you to try to
follow the recipe and find the gotchas.

I append the FAQ entry below.  It looks imposing, and that's enough of
a reason why the current situation sucks, but renaming a list just
isn't a common enough task IMO that it's worth spending time improving
for MM2.1.  Let's put it on the slate for the next version, though.

And though it seems like a lot of stuff, it really isn't.  I was able
to follow the instructions and rename the list in about 5 minutes.
There's a lot of detail because you want to be as cautious as possible
so that no posts or web hits are reaching the list until the move is
complete.

Comments, questions?

-Barry

(P.S. Michael, I hope this helps!)

-------------------- snip snip --------------------
Q. How do I rename a list?

A. Renaming a list is currently a bit of a pain to do completely
   correctly, especially if you want to make sure that the old list
   contacts are automatically forwarded to the new list.  This ought
   to be easier. :(

   The biggest problem you have is how to stop mail and web traffic to
   your list during the transition, and what to do about any mail
   undelivered to the old list after the move.  I don't think there
   are any foolproof steps, but here's how you can reduce the risk:

   - Temporarily disable qrunner.  To do this, you need to edit the
     user `mailman's crontab entry.  Execute the following command,
     commenting out the qrunner line when you're dropped into your
     editor.  Then save the file and quit the editor.

     % crontab -u mailman -e

   - Turn off your mail server.  This is mostly harmless since remote
     MTAs will just keep retrying until you turn it back on, and it's
     not going to be off for very long.

   - Next turn off your web server if possible.  This of course means
     your entire site will be off-line while you make the switch and
     this may not be acceptable to you.  The next best suggestion is
     to set up your permanent redirects now for the list you're
     moving.  This means that anybody looking for the list under its
     old name will be redirected to the new name, but they'll get
     errors until you've completed the move.

     Let's say the old name is "oldname" and the new name is
     "newname".  Here are some Apache directives that will do the
     trick, though YMMV:

     RedirectMatch permanent /mailman/(.*)/oldname(.*) http://www.dom.ain/mailman/$1/newname$2
     RedirectMatch permanent /pipermail/oldname(.*)    http://www.dom.ain/pipermail/newname$1

     Add these to your httpd.conf file and restart Apache.

   - Now cd to the directory where you've installed Mailman.  Let's
     say it's /usr/local/mailman:

     % cd /usr/local/mailman

     and cd to the `lists' subdirectory:

     % cd lists

     You should now see the directory `oldname'.  Move this to
     `newname':

     % mv oldname newname

   - Now cd to the private archives directory:

     % cd ../archives/private

     You will need to move the oldname's .mbox directory, and the
     .mbox file within that directory.  Don't worry about the public
     archives; the next few steps will take care of them without
     requiring you to fiddle around in the file system:

     % mv oldname.mbox newname.mbox
     % mv newname.mbox/oldname.mbox newname.mbox/newname.mbox

   - You now need to run the `bin/move_list' script to update some of
     the internal archiver paths.  IMPORTANT: Skip this step if you
     are using Mailman 2.1!

     % cd ../..
     % bin/move_list newname

   - You should now regenerate the public archives:

     % bin/arch newname

   - You'll likely need to change some of your list's configuration
     options, especially if you want to accept postings addressed to
     the old list on the new list.  Visit the admin interface for your
     new list:

     o Go to the General options

     o Change the "real_name" option to reflect the new list's name,
       e.g. "Newname"

     o Change the subject prefix to reflect the new list's name,
       e.g. "[Newname] " (yes, that's a trailing space character).

     o Optionally, update other configuration fields like info,
       description, or welcome_msg.  YMMV.

     o Save your changes

     o Go to the Privacy options

     o Add the old list's address to acceptable_aliases.
       E.g. "oldname at dom.ain".  This way, (after the /etc/aliases
       changes described below) messages posted to the old list will
       not be held by the new list for "implicit destination"
       approval.

     o Save your changes

   - Now you want to update your /etc/aliases file to include the
     aliases for the new list, and forwards for the old list to the
     new list.  Note that these instructions are for Sendmail style
     alias files, adjust to the specifics of how your MTA is set up.

     o Find the lines defining the aliases for your old list's name

     o Copy and paste them just below the originals.

     o Change all the references of "oldname" to "newname" in the
       pasted stanza.

     o Now change the targets of the original aliases to forward to
       the new aliases.  When you're done, you will end up with
       /etc/aliases entries like the following (YMMV):

       # Forward the oldname list to the newname list
       oldname:         newname at dom.ain
       oldname-request: newname-request at dom.ain
       oldname-admin:   newname-admin at dom.ain
       oldname-owner:   newname-owner at dom.ain

       newname:         "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/wrapper post newname"
       newname-admin:   "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/wrapper mailowner newname"
       newname-request: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/wrapper mailcmd newname"
       newname-owner:   newname-admin

     o Run newaliases

   - Before you restart everything, you want to make one last check.
     You're looking for files in the qfiles/ directory that may have
     been addressed to the old list but weren't delivered before you
     renamed the list.  Do something like the following:

     % cd /usr/local/mailman/qfiles
     % grep oldname *.msg

     If you get no hits, skip to the next step, you've got nothing to
     worry about.

     If you did get hits, then things get complicated.  I warn you
     that the rest of this step is untested. :(

     For each of the .msg files that were destined for the old list,
     you need to change the corresponding .db file.  Unfortunately
     there's no easy way to do this.  Anyway...

     Save the following Python code in a file called 'hackdb.py':

     -------------------------hackdb.py
     import sys
     import marshal
     fp = open(sys.argv[1])
     d = marshal.load(fp)
     fp.close()
     d['listname'] = sys.argv[2]
     fp = open(sys.argv[1], 'w')
     marshal.dump(d, fp)
     fp.close()
     -------------------------

     And then for each file that matched your grep above, do the
     following:

     % python hackdb.py reallylonghexfilenamematch1.db newname

   - It's now safe to turn your MTA back on.

   - Turn your qrunner back on by running

     % crontab -u mailman -e

     again and this time uncommenting the qrunner line.  Save the file
     and quit your editor.

   - Rejoice, you're done.  Send $100,000 in shiny new pennies to the
     Mailman cabal as your downpayment toward making this easier for
     the next list you have to rename. :)