[Mailman-Users] Subscribers suddenly "disappear"

[Mark Sapiro]

Mark Sapiro wrote:
>
>However, locking (at least list locking at the Mailman level) doesn't
>seem to be involved in this case because each command process will
>have saved and unlocked the list and terminated before the next
>command process begins.


While is correct as far as it goes, I forgot about VirginRunner and
OutgoingRunner sending the welcome messages. So there are other
mailman processes running in parallel accessing the same config.pck
files so list locking is involved.


>I intend to test the script on two other platforms (Cygwin/Python
>2.5.1, and Centos 5/Python 2.4.3) later today.


I have run a somewhat revised script on both platforms with the
following results:

Cygwin 1.5.19(0.150/4/2) on Windows XP with Python 2.5.1
  No loss of members whether or not mailman is running concurrently
  (3 of 3 tries with mailman running).

CentOS 5 (Linux 2.6.18-8.1.14.el5) with Python 2.4.3
  No loss of members if script is run with mailman stopped.
  Lost members if script is run with mailman running on 2 out of 3
  tries.

So far, all the failures reported have been with Python 2.4.x and
Python 2.5.1 didn't fail, but this could also be Cygwin and
independent of Python. It would help if others could try this with
Python 2.5.x and report.

Here's the script I used. It is similar to the original, but I
parameterized several things and I added '-a' to the rmlist command.

#!/bin/sh

prefix=/usr/local/mailman
usera=mark at msapiro.net
userb=msapiro at msapiro.net
owner=mark at msapiro.net
edomain=msapiro.net
listname=testlist

$prefix/bin/rmlist -a ${listname}1
$prefix/bin/rmlist -a ${listname}2
$prefix/bin/rmlist -a ${listname}3
$prefix/bin/rmlist -a ${listname}4
$prefix/bin/rmlist -a ${listname}5
$prefix/bin/rmlist -a ${listname}6
$prefix/bin/newlist -q -e $edomain ${listname}1 $owner testpwd
$prefix/bin/newlist -q -e $edomain ${listname}2 $owner testpwd
$prefix/bin/newlist -q -e $edomain ${listname}3 $owner testpwd
$prefix/bin/newlist -q -e $edomain ${listname}4 $owner testpwd
$prefix/bin/newlist -q -e $edomain ${listname}5 $owner testpwd
$prefix/bin/newlist -q -e $edomain ${listname}6 $owner testpwd


echo "$usera" | $prefix/bin/add_members -r - ${listname}1
echo "$usera" | $prefix/bin/add_members -r - ${listname}2
echo "$usera" | $prefix/bin/add_members -r - ${listname}3
echo "$usera" | $prefix/bin/add_members -r - ${listname}4
echo "$usera" | $prefix/bin/add_members -r - ${listname}5
echo "$usera" | $prefix/bin/add_members -r - ${listname}6
echo "$userb" | $prefix/bin/add_members -r - ${listname}1
echo "$userb" | $prefix/bin/add_members -r - ${listname}2
echo "$userb" | $prefix/bin/add_members -r - ${listname}3
echo "$userb" | $prefix/bin/add_members -r - ${listname}4
echo "$userb" | $prefix/bin/add_members -r - ${listname}5
echo "$userb" | $prefix/bin/add_members -r - ${listname}6

sleep 5

$prefix/bin/list_members ${listname}1
$prefix/bin/list_members ${listname}2
$prefix/bin/list_members ${listname}3
$prefix/bin/list_members ${listname}4
$prefix/bin/list_members ${listname}5
$prefix/bin/list_members ${listname}6

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