[Mailman-Users] config.pck files

[Christopher Adams]

 THank you, Mark. There were config.db files, all which have been removed.
I couldn't fine anything in the error log that gave me an indication of
what might have happened. I followed your tips and have copied the
config.safety to config.pck and all seems to be fine. Thanks again for
explaining it all to me.


On Oct 30, 2014 12:53 PM, "Mark Sapiro" <mark at msapiro.net> wrote:

> On 10/30/2014 09:03 AM, Christopher Adams wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > A list that is hosted here reported that the membership list and other
> > settings had reverted to previous content.
> >
> > I took a look at the files and see this:
> >
> > -rw-rw---- 1 mailman mailman 14526 Oct 30 08:00 config.pck
> > -rw-rw---- 1 mailman mailman 48950 Sep 29 13:15 config.pck.corrupt
> > -rw-rw---- 1 mailman mailman 14526 Oct 30 08:00 config.pck.last
> > -rw-rw---- 1 apache  mailman 49499 Sep 29 16:38 config.pck.safety
>
>
> Where there any config.db.* files? A problem is that between Mailman 2.0
> and 2.1 this file changed from a marshal (config.db) to a pickle
> (config.pck). The upgrade process migrated the file, but if the
> config.db* files were not then manually removed, what can happen is
> later (perhaps years later) the config.pck files become somehow
> corrupted. Mailman tries the files in the order config.pck,
> config.pck.last, config.db and config.db.last, and the first one it can
> successfully load is used. This can be a config.db which rolls back the
> list to a possibly way earlier state.
>
>
> > It looks like the config.pck file was corrupt. Just for clarification,
> what
> > are the other config.pck* files ?
>
>
> Every time Mailman saves a list's state, it makes a file named
> config.pck.tmp.<hostname>.<pid> and saves the list's state there and
> then removes config.pck.last, renames config.pck to config.pck.last and
> finally renames config.pck.tmp.<hostname>.<pid> to config.pck.
>
> So there is always a current config.pck and the immediately prior
> config.pck.last.
>
> When Mailman tries to load a config.pck and has to fall back to a prior
> file, it logs that fact in the 'error' log which see, and it renames the
> current config.pck to config.pck.corrupt and also copies the recovered
> file to config.pck and to config.pck.safety.
>
>
> > Since teh config.pck.safety looks like it
> > is much larger in size, and I ran ./dumpdb to read it and it appears to
> be
> > more current data, I am thinking that I can use it to overwrite the
> > config.pck, which apparently was used because the file was corrupt.
> >
> > Can someone explain how these files work when the file becomes corrupt?
>
>
> See above, and see all the error log messages relating to this.
>
> It is unclear exactly what the issue was here. It apparently occurred on
> Sept 29. The error log from that time may help understand the sequence.
>
>
> > Can I just copy the config.pck.safety to config.pck ?
>
>
> If you can successfully dump it with bin/dumpdb, you can copy it to
> config.pck and that should work. To be absolutely safe, you could run
> 'bin/withlist -l <listname>' to lock the list, then do the copy from
> another terminal and then type control-D to exit the withlist session
> and unlock the list. Otherwise you run the risk that Mailman or the web
> UI is updating the list just as you do the copy.
>
> Also, when you're done and the list works, remove or move aside the
> config.db* files if any and the .corrupt and .safety files.
>
> --
> Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
> San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan
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