[Mailman-Users] How to install Mailman 2.1.13 on Debian Lenny

[Mark Sapiro]

Terri Oda wrote:
>
>Ulf Dunkel wrote:
>> They asked me to install Mailman v2.1.13 "manually" because this doesn't 
>> seem to be possible with apt-get right now.
>> 
>> Because I have not installed a single app myself without the help of the 
>> package manager aptitude, I am kind of stuck.
>> 
>> Can you give me a little howto?
>
>There's one on list.org: http://list.org/mailman-install/index.html
>
>It may not seem little from that table of contents, but the sections 
>mostly quite short and simple.  I think it's bundled with the source, 
>and you can get it in a few other formats if you prefer:
>
>http://list.org/site.html


Terri is correct about Mailman not being particularly difficult to
install, but there are some caveats for upgrading a Debian
installation from source. When you run configure, you will probably
want to specify

  --prefix=/usr/lib/mailman --with-var-prefix=/var/lib/mailman
--with-username=list --with-groupname=list

You probably also need to specify --with-cgi-gid= and -with-mail-gid=.
These are respectively the group with which the web server invokes
CGIs (maybe www-data?) and the group with which the mail server will
invoke the wrapper, although Debian normally uses
postfix_to_mailman.py, but I think the group is important. Debian
patches the wrappers to accept any group with numerical gid < 100, but
without that patch, you need to get it right.

You might also look at other Debian patches at
<http://patch-tracker.debian.org/package/mailman>. In particular,
those Defaults.py.in patches in "01_defaults.debian.patch" are things
you probably want in mm_cfg.py to keep doing things the Debian way.

The alternative is to do a default source install per the manual and
then move your lists per the FAQ at <http://wiki.list.org/x/2oA9>.

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