[Mailman-Users] startup commands on OSX

[Larry Stone]

On Wed, 6 Jun 2007, Chris Geier wrote:

> Hello:
>
> I have a question I hope someone can help me with.
>
> I have Mailman loaded on a Mac and it has been working fine.
>
> The computer lost power the other evening and shutdown.
>
> After restarting the computer I can access the Mailman lists, but any mail
> does not get sent.
>
> Anyone know what the commands are to get the mail moving again?

Sounds like there's nothing on your computer to start mailman
automatically at boot.

To start it on your current running system, go into Terminal and type:
sudo /path/to/mailman/bin/mailmanctl start

where /path/to/mailman is the path to where mailman is (for instance, if
it's in the Applications folder in a folder called Mailman, then you'd put
/Applications/Mailman there).

To have Mailman start at boot time, follow these instructions from my guid
to installing Mailman on Mac OS X (the full guide can be found in the
archives - it's from July 2005):

Step 8) Configure your system to start Mailman when it is booted.

a) Open Terminal and change directory to /Library/LaunchDaemons:
     sudo su
     cd /Library/LaunchDaemons

*** June 2007 addendum: my original said to cd to
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons. I've since learned that Apple recommends
that only Apple provided startup files be there and 3rd-party startup
files be in /Library/LaunchDaemons (not withstanding that other 3rd-party
packages have put stuff in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons).

b) Create the Mailman startup preference file:
     touch mailman.plist

c) Using your favorite method of text editing, add the following content to
mailman.plist:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Disabled</key>
        <false/>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>mailman</string>
        <key>OnDemand</key>
        <true/>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>/Applications/Mailman/bin/mailmanctl</string>
                <string>start</string>
        </array>
        <key>ServiceIPC</key>
        <false/>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

d) Verify the file ownership and permissions:
     ls -l
   You should see one of the lines saying something like:
     -rw-r--r--  5 root   wheel   170 12 May 11:21 mailman

e) If the permissions (rw-r--r--) are not correct, type:
     chmod 644 mailman.plist

f) If the owner (root) or group (wheel) is not correct, type:
     chown root:wheel Mailman

g) Reboot (Restart) your system. When it finishes rebooting, Mailman should
be running. To verify, open Terminal and type:
    ps -ax | grep python
You should see a bunch of lines like this:
  434  ??  Ss     0:00.04 python bin/mailmanctl -s start
  443  ??  S      4:19.95 /usr/bin/python /Applications/Mailman/bin/qrunner
--r
  444  ??  S      4:08.58 /usr/bin/python /Applications/Mailman/bin/qrunner
--r
  445  ??  S      4:11.20 /usr/bin/python /Applications/Mailman/bin/qrunner
--r
  446  ??  S      4:06.93 /usr/bin/python /Applications/Mailman/bin/qrunner
--r
  447  ??  S      3:59.35 /usr/bin/python /Applications/Mailman/bin/qrunner
--r
  448  ??  S      4:16.59 /usr/bin/python /Applications/Mailman/bin/qrunner
--r
  449  ??  S      4:04.08 /usr/bin/python /Applications/Mailman/bin/qrunner
--r
  450  ??  S      0:00.85 /usr/bin/python /Applications/Mailman/bin/qrunner
--r
16621 std  R+     0:00.00 grep -i python
(The numbers will vary. The important thing is that you see the qrunner
processes)

-- Larry Stone
   lstone19 at stonejongleux.com