[Mailman-Users] Virtual Host problems

Sat Mar 24 06:51:37 CET 2001

I'm running virtual domains using virtfs.  My method of doing it sounds ugly,
but I've gotten to the point where it's easy to set up and works pretty well.

For those of you who haven't used virtfs, it's basically a set of scripts that
uses chroot to set up virtual domains.  It uses a few megs of disk space per
domain, but I don't think that's a large price to pay.

Basically I keep two versions of Mailman in each domain.  One is for the MTA
that runs in the chrooted environment and has no idea that it doesn't own
the machine.  That one is compiled in /home/mailman, and I just grab a copy 
of it every time I set up a new domain.  I do a "make" in an unchrooted shell
for /home/mailman, then I copy that version over to /virtualdomain/home/mailman
each time I do an install and run "make install".

The other version is strictly for Apache.  Rather than run separate instances
of Apache, I run one and then use Apache's virtual domain mechanism, which
is excellent.  I build Mailman in the /virtualdomain/home/mailman.cgi directory,
then blow away all the directories that contain data and make symbolic links
to the data directories in the /virtualdomain/home/mailman directory while 
NOT in a chrooted environment.

So now I have two copies of mailman, one that thinks it owns the machine and
runs off the virtual domain's MTA, and one that really only contains the cgi 
stuff and runs in the regular unchrooted environment.  They both use the
same data so everything's synced up, but the right site names are compiled
in so that none of the scripts get mixed up.  I hope that the web setup stuff
will get separated into its own configuration some day, so that one could 
set a different cgi path without having two separate copies of Mailman.

There's one more thing you need to do, and that's to make sure that the 
virtual machine's relevant user and group ids (mailman, MTA and cgi) match 
the master machine's relevant user and group ids.  If you don't sync these
up you'll have lots of mysterious little problems. 

Hope that helps!
Dave Klingler

> I am having similar problems!   I started out running my web server 
> (apache) for just one site, and got Mailman running pretty well, then 
> added  a second site via virtual hosting.  Now I can't get to the admin 
> pages. I get a very generic web page that says there is a config error and 
> that the System Admin should check the logs.
> 
> Does anyone have an idea about this? My mail lists are running fine, but 
> nobody can get to the admin pages!  Running mandrake 7.2, Mailman 2.03, 
> postfix.
> 
> Thanks!
> Perry
> 
> At 08:43 PM 3/22/2001 -0600, Kathleen Weaver wrote:
> >I've got Mailman setup on a virtual host.
> >
> >A List works fine on the main domain, but if I try to set up a list on a 
> >virtual domain, the list messages go to default email address for the 
> >site, instead of being posted on the list.
> >
> >That list worked fine until I moved it to the virtual server addresses, 
> >and now the mail is going only to the default address  (the one 
> >missaddressed stuff goes to).
> >
> >Thanks in advance for the help.
> >
> >
> >kathleen
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------
> >Mailman-Users maillist  -  Mailman-Users at python.org
> >http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users
> 
> --=====================_231208550==_.ALT
> Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> <html>
> I am having similar problems!&nbsp; <i> </i>I started out running my web
> server (apache) for just one site, and got Mailman running pretty well,
> then added&nbsp; a second site via virtual hosting.&nbsp; Now I can't get
> to the admin pages. I get a very generic web page that says there is a
> config error and that the System Admin should check the logs.<br>
> <br>
> Does anyone have an idea about this? My mail lists are running fine, but
> nobody can get to the admin pages!&nbsp; Running mandrake 7.2, Mailman
> 2.03, postfix.<br>
> <br>
> Thanks!<br>
> Perry<br>
> <br>
> At 08:43 PM 3/22/2001 -0600, Kathleen Weaver wrote:<br>
> <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>I've got Mailman setup on a virtual
> host.<br>
> <br>
> A List works fine on the main domain, but if I try to set up a list on a
> virtual domain, the list messages go to default email address for the
> site, instead of being posted on the list.<br>
> <br>
> That list worked fine until I moved it to the virtual server addresses,
> and now the mail is going only to the default address&nbsp; (the one
> missaddressed stuff goes to).<br>
> <br>
> Thanks in advance for the help.<br>
> <br>
> <br>
> kathleen<br>
> <br>
> <br>
> <br>
> <br>
> <br>
> ------------------------------------------------------<br>
> Mailman-Users maillist&nbsp; -&nbsp; Mailman-Users at python.org<br>
> <a href="http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users" eudora="autourl">http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users</a>
> </blockquote></html>
> 
> --=====================_231208550==_.ALT--
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Mailman-Users maillist  -  Mailman-Users at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users
> 