[Mailman-Users] Errors on mailman startup

[Mark Sapiro]

Dave Filchak wrote:

>Mark Sapiro wrote:
>>
>> Did you actually do the test described in the post at
>> <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2005-May/044976.html>
>> (linked from the FAQ) as the Mailman user?
>>   
>Yes. This test was fine.
>> Did you actually try to send mail as described in the post at
>> <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2005-May/044746.html>
>> (linked from the FAQ) as the Mailman user?
>>   
>This worked as well although, as I mention below, I am not logged in a 
>mailman as mailman has no login shell and no password. Do I need to 
>create one for mailman and try it again?
>> If you did those as the Mailman user and they didn't show any error,
>> then I can't explain why it fails when OutgoingRunner does the exact
>> same thing.
>>
>>   
>Did not do them as the mailman user but as another user (not root). User 
>mailman has no login shell (/sbin/nologin) Should mailman need a login 
>shell and passwd? It never has before and mailman was working. Again, 
>there was a UPS failure at my ISP and the servers lost power abruptly so 
>something might have happened then. But everything else is working, 
>including regular mail.


No. Mailman doesn't need a login shell or a password. You should be
able to do, e.g.

sudo -u mailman /bin/bash

in order to get a command shell running as mailman or

sudo -u mailman python

to get a python interpreter.

It seems there is a permissions issue somewhere that is preventing
mailman from accessing something. Make sure /etc/hosts and
/etc/resolve.conf are world readable. If that isn't it, try to narrow
it down by running the tests as mailman using sudo as above.

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