[Mailman-Users] web interface for sync_members redux

[Mark Sapiro]

On 02/11/2016 11:58 AM, The Mailing List System Admin wrote:
> I see that people have requested in the past a web interface to the
> syn_members functionality, and found at least two patches to modify
> the current web interface to do this.  At this early stage of the game
> with Mailman, I'm not willing to be doing things like patching
> Mailman, so I was wondering if anyone has solved this problem with a
> stand-alone CGI script that handles the required list owner
> authentication?


I thought about and may still make a skeleton CGI that could do the list
admin authentication and allow for calling mailman command line scripts.
There is an issue with this however. See below.


> Lacking that, is there a way that I could confirm a list's password
> from the command line so I could roll my own CGI script to expose a
> transaction service for a select group of my list owners?  (Along with
> the authentication requirement I would also limit its use to only
> certain lists.)


See the FAQ at <http://wiki.list.org/x/4030648> and the members.c
program attached to that FAQ. It would be fairly easy to modify
members.c to do what you want except for the authentication requirement.

The issue with the members.c approach is it has no good way to do the
authentication and neither does the calling CGI or PHP script. Thus the
first idea about a skeleton CGI which does authentication and then
whatever you add to it to do such as running sync_members. The
underlying issue is that whatever is doing this must run as a member of
Mailman's group. Thus, members.c is compiled, executable code in a file
with Mailman's group and SETGID. Likewise, All Mailman's CGIs are
invoked by compiled executable wrappers that are in files with Mailman's
group and SETGID.

So the stumbling block here is that members.c can't properly
authenticate the user as a list admin, and the skeleton CGI that I might
create needs a new wrapper. This latter is not difficult if you have a
Mailman source distribution, but if you are reluctant to patch Mailman,
this may be an issue for you.

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