[Mailman-Users] Mailman rpm in opensuse 11.0 clobbers postfix administration

[Roger Price]

The installation of the mailman rpm included in opensuse 11.0 may 
lead to later problems with postfix administration.  This note 
explains how to avoid those problems.

The distribution opensuse 11.0 contain a package which installs 
mailman 2.1.9.  The package contains an essential README: 
/usr/share/doc/packages/mailman/README.SuSE which explains how to 
set up mailman.  Amongst the instructions is

3) Add /var/lib/mailman/data/aliases to the alias_maps statement in
    /etc/postfix/main.cf:
    alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases, ..., hash:/var/lib/mailman/data/aliases
    and reload postfix.

If you do this, mailman will work, but any later modification to the 
postfix configuration via /etc/sysconfig/postfix will be rejected 
because main.cf is seen as "corrupted".  This can be a thorough 
nuisance.  A better way to specify alias_maps for mailman is to add

   # POSTFIX_ADD_*
   # You may add any existing postfix parameter here. Just execute the
   # postconf command to get a complete list. You then have to uppercase
   # the parameter and prepend POSTFIX_ADD_.
   POSTFIX_ADD_ALIAS_MAPS="hash:/etc/aliases, hash:/var/lib/mailman/data/aliases"

to /etc/sysconfig/postfix and then run command

     SuSEconfig --module postfix

Use command postconf -n to check that alias_maps is correct.

Roger