[Mailman-Users] Cloning a Mailman server to a virtual machine.

[The Mailing List Server Admin]

Dear Mailman Cognoscenti,

We have Mailman (and ListProc) running on a physical machine which
needs to be decommissioned.  Cloning the system to a virtual machine
(VM) shouldn't be a problem, but I am unsure about the tasks needed to
make a smooth transition.  I've looked at several articles about
moving Mailman to new hardware, but a lot of the lower level service
details are not mentioned.  Here's my first stab at what I think needs
to be done.

   Mailman v2.1.20
   RHEL v5.11
   Semdmail v8.13.8
   Apache v2.2.3

After informing the list owners of date/time mailing list services
will be unavailable, at the appointed time...

On the existing machine:

    1. stop cron		sudo service crond stop
    2. stop Sendmail	sudo service sendmail stop
    3. stop Apache	sudo apachectl stop
    4. stop Mailman	sudo service mailmain stop
    5. stop ListProc	su --command=/home/server/stop server
    6. check mail queue	sudo mailq

    7. Wait ?? for machine to quiet down?

Clone existing system to VM.

    8. shutdown old machine
    9. boot VM clone
   10. test email and lists
   11. alert list owners

My concern is that a mailing list server is a very stateful beast, so
I want to avoid sending duplicate posts/digests, or accidentally
dropping new postings on the floor.  Thanks for any insights you may
have to offer on the process.

-- 
                                   Cordially,
                                   the UNH Mailing List Server Admins
                                   Bill Costa, senior admin
                                   (603) 862-3056