[Mailman-Users] Next: newlist admin passwords not working?

[Paul D. Smith]

%% "Christopher P. Lindsey" <lindsey at mallorn.com> writes:

  >> I ran into some problems a while back where the Web server didn't have 
  >> the Python crypt module installed, but the mail server did.  The upshot
  >> was that Mailman used crypt() to create passwords on the mail server, 
  >> but then couldn't authenticate against them on the Web server.  :)

  cpl> The problem that I had was that both servers were running RedHat
  cpl> 4.2, which had python sans the crypt module.  Even though
  cpl> USE_CRYPT was set to 1 in mm_cfg.py, it wouldn't work since the
  cpl> module wasn't there.

OK, I don't set USE_CRYPT in mm_cfg.py at all.  The default (in
Defaults.py) is USE_CRYPT = 1.

I built all the software here myself, including Python, Apache, and
Mailman.

  cpl> Changing USE_CRYPT to 0 solved the problem (and I personally feel
  cpl> that this should be the default given the problems that this can
  cpl> cause).

OK, I tried this and it solved my problem!  Yay!

But, I'm confused.  Why does creating the passwd with newlist not DTRT,
yet changing it with the web interface (or using mmsitepass!) work
correctly?

It turns out that none of the passwords were crypted, because even after
I changed USE_CRYPT to 0, they all continued to work.  I guess this
means that Python wasn't built with the crypt library, right?

I'm still confused though; if Python and mmsitepass are not using crypt
even though USE_CRYPT is 1, why was newlist using it?  Is newlist a C
program instead of a Python program, or something?

Thanks.

-- 
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 Paul D. Smith <psmith at baynetworks.com>    HASMAT--HA Software Methods & Tools
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
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   These are my opinions---Nortel Networks takes no responsibility for them.