[Mailman-Users] Permission problems with /etc/mailman/*.db

[Robert Moskowitz]

This is a clean install on Fedora 12, which provides Mailman 2.1.12

This time my cookbook seemed to be all in order.  Everything was going 
great.  Mailman list created and user added, message sent, then I locked 
up the Mailman list so it would not be available to viewers once I moved 
this box to a public network.

Then I went to create my first list via /mailman/create.  I got a bug.  
On checking the error_log, I see that create does not have permissions 
to /etc/mailman/aliases.db

I go over to /etc/mailman, and I see that both aliases and 
virtual-mailman were updated, but NOT the .db files.  The permissions on 
the .db files is 640, not 660!  How come?

So I ran check_perm -f as Mark recommended for the last permission 
problem (that I caused, but this time it was straight install stuff), 
and it fixed a number of errors:

# /usr/lib/mailman/bin/check_perms -f
/usr/lib/mailman/cron bad group (has: root, expected mailman) (fixing)
directory permissions must be 02775: /usr/lib/mailman/cron (fixing)
/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman bad group (has: root, expected mailman) (fixing)
directory permissions must be 02775: /usr/lib/mailman/Mailman (fixing)
/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.pyc bad group (has: root, expected 
mailman) (fixing)
Warning: Private archive directory is other-executable (o+x).
          This could allow other users on your system to read private 
archives.
          If you're on a shared multiuser system, you should consult the
          installation manual on how to fix this.
/etc/mailman/aliases.db owned by root (must be owned by mailman (fixing)
/etc/mailman/aliases.db permissions must be 066x (got 0100640) (fixing)
/etc/mailman/virtual-mailman.db owned by root (must be owned by mailman 
(fixing)
/etc/mailman/virtual-mailman.db permissions must be 066x (got 0100640) 
(fixing)
Problems found: 9
Re-run as mailman (or root) with -f flag to fix

That is a LOT of errors for just installing with yum and running the 
mailman mmsitepass and newlist scripts!

Now this is Fedora 12 with is eol, so we IF the problem is Fedora's 
packaging, we probably won't get it fixed here.  But what about Fedora 
13 & 14?  I won't be working with 13 for mailman.  I will be working on 
a Fedora 14 migration probably around February, so I can't check this 
out there for a while.  I hope I won't encounter this little supprise 
then...

But other than this little speed bump, I GOT IT UP AND RUNNING!!!!

THANK YOU for your help.

I know have to configure all the users in the SQL database (not really 
that hard), then rsync to mail from the old server to the new (after 
stopping mail on the old), then switch the servers out.  I could be in 
production tonight.