[Mailman-Users] Old server settings applied to some lists

[Anne Anderson]

Hello!  I hope someone can help me fix some bad configuration.

We am running mailman 2.1.9 here at Westmont College and we have 
hundreds of lists which have been set up over the last 10 years or so. 
In that time, we have had several different mail servers.  We now use 
the name mail.westmont.edu to refer to our current mail server, 
regardless of what its real hostname is.

However, some of the lists which were created long ago seem to be still 
configured with other server names.

This results in bad links being sent out in email notices from these 
lists, such as notices to moderators that messages are being held.

The only way I have found to fix this is to remove and re-create the 
list.  Needless to say I'd rather fix the bad configs in a more direct way.

I'm a programmer (perl and php), and although I don't speak python, I 
tend to be one of those who likes to look at the scripts to find an 
answer to a problem.

So I looked at mm_cfg.py and Defaults.py and discovered these settings:

In mm_cfg.py (last modified 2002-10-07):

DEFAULT_HOST_NAME = 'mail.westmont.edu'
DEFAULT_URL       = 'http://%s/mailman/' % DEFAULT_HOST_NAME

This is correct.

In Defaults.py (last modified 2006-08-04):

DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST = 'down.westmont.edu'
DEFAULT_URL_HOST = 'down.westmont.edu'
DEFAULT_URL_PATTERN = 'http://%s/mailman/'

# DEFAULT_HOST_NAME has been replaced with DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST, however some
# sites may have the former in their mm_cfg.py files.  If so, we'll believe
# that, otherwise we'll believe DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST.  Same for DEFAULT_URL.

DEFAULT_HOST_NAME = None
DEFAULT_URL = None

This is not correct... we have not had the server named 
'down.westmont.edu' for many years.  However, this hostname is 
configured into many of the lists that were created at the time.

When doing a grep for 'down.westmont.edu' in /var/lib/mailman/Mailman, 
it also tells me that the binary file Defaults.pyc matches.

We are cautioned not to edit Defaults.py by hand, and I wouldn't know 
how to recompile it anyway. :)

Can anyone tell me how to fix this so that all our lists will be 
configured for mail.westmont.edu?  Thanks!

Anne

Anne Anderson	aba at westmont.edu
Web Application Developer / Database Manager
Information Technology
Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA, USA