[Mailman-Users] Importing data from old mailman (unknown version).db in to the current version (2.1.6)

[Mark Sapiro]

Michael E. Duffy wrote:
>
>I'm trying to import my old mailman files (specficically the users 
>information) from my old install of mailman.  The data have been 
>recovered from a failed disk, and I want to import it in to my new 2.1.6 
>install.  The files in questions are:
>
>config.db (old)   -->  config.pck (new)
>
>Is there a simple way to do this?


Yes. There are two ways.

Way 1 - do not create the list. Manually create the lists/listname/
directory with proper ownership and permissions and put the old
config.db file in the directory. The first time you access the list,
Mailman will update/convert the config.db and save a config.pck (and
config.pck.last). You can then remove the config.db.

Drawbacks - no archives unless you also recover and restore those, and
maybe no archive directories either.

Way 2 - create the list. Then put the old config.db file in the
lists/listname/ directory AND (crucially important) remove the
config.pck and config.pck.last. Then when you access the list Mailman
will create the files as above and you can remove the config.db.

Again, archives need to be recovered separately, but at least the
directory structure will all be there.

Background - when Mailman (since 2.1) accesses a list, it looks for
config.pck, config.pck.last, config.db and config.db.last in that
order. The first good one it finds is what it uses. If it's not for
the current version, it does the best it can to convert the settings,
defaulting new ones, and then saves it as config.pck. config.pck.last
is the previous config.pck as a backup.

With either method, you'll want to go through the configuration after
conversion and make sure things are OK.

-- 
Mark Sapiro <msapiro at value.net>       The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan