[Mailman-Users] config.pck, apache, permissions and Errno 13

[Sam Gamgee]

hello everyone,

I am writing this e-mail as a sort of last resort. Believe me I've tried hard, 
but can't find a solution to the following problem.

-I installed mailman on a debian server with postfix.

-all mailing lists work.

-webinterface works.

now, whenever the cronscripts run, or somebody sends a mail over one of the 
lists, the permissions of some file (usually something like: 
"/var/lib/mailman/lists/listname/config.pck") will change from www:mailman to 
mailman:mailman.

after this happens, I can no longer access the web-interface.
The result:

Bug in Mailman version 2.1.5
We're sorry, we hit a bug!
If you would like to help us identify the problem, please email a copy of this 
page to the webmaster for this site with a description of what happened. 
Thanks! 
Traceback:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/var/lib/mailman/scripts/driver", line 87, in run_main
    main()
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/Cgi/listinfo.py", line 47, in main
    mlist = MailList.MailList(listname, lock=0)
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 128, in __init__
    self.Load()
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 593, in Load
    dict, e = self.__load(file)
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 559, in __load
    fp = open(dbfile)
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: 
'/var/lib/mailman/lists/listname/config.pck'



I tried many things including:

I have tried forcing the permissions by doing a chmod u+s. that didn't work
>ls -l
>drwsrwsr-x    6 www-data mailman      4096 Sep  9 01:11 listname


I tried to change 
MAILMAN_USER = 'www-data'
in 
/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py
but this resulted in a
Mailman mail-wrapper: Group mismatch error.


I was then thorougly confused by suexec stuff 
http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=recent&days=365250
-see "6.17. Apache+Suexec"

one the one hand, this suggests I should run everything as mailman:mailman and 
on the other hand I am warned strongly against this in the mailman 
installation docs. not to mention that the apache docs concerning suexec are 
daunting. well as apache doc are ;-)


and DON'T tell me to run check_perms!
*grin*


so now here is my question:
can anybody help me?



thank you
aron