Re: [Mailman-Users] Problem with Installing Mailman 2.1.9 on Solaris
The esteemed David Devereaux-Weber, P.E. has said: Hank, I'm still not succeeding in building Mailman. I'd like to follow another path. Can you explain why Tcl/TK don't build? The Python make install command fatals there, and doesn't complete copying some of the modules into the right places. Dave You're running into problems I haven't encountered, if you can't install Python without tcl and ssl. I'd suggest clearing the build and install directories, doing a fresh unpack of the Python sources, and running through the build process again. My recollection is that both Python and Mailman will build with the gcc 3.4.2 that is in the Solaris 10 distribution /usr/sfw directory tree, but that you have to do some jiggery-pokery with LD_RUN_PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, or crle to get the builds to find the GNU libraries. My installations were built with the Sun development system (Studio 11, installs in /opt/SUNWspro), so I haven't explored the implications of running with a GNU build on Solaris 10 very far. Why Python won't build with the extensions in Solaris is that the build process doesn't look in /opt/sfw. I've done enough porting exploration to see that a fix involves adding a search to those directories in setup.py (in the Python build base directory), but haven't explored everything I need to know to assure that I've got an appropriate fix. Some queries to the Python users and Python developers mail lists didn't produce meaningful results, and I'm left with the feeling that yer on yer own with Python reliability. What I can tell you is that my builds of Python 2.4.4 and 2.5, using the Sun devsys, and without doing any porting work, install and support Mailman on my systems. I'd suggest capturing the outputs of the configure and make steps and reviewing them. Also, the various log, makefile, and status files that configure generates. I'm not really prepared to wear a Python developer hat and try to work Python-on-Solaris problems beyond getting a Python that will support Mailman. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] Problem with Installing Mailman 2.1.9 on Solaris 10
The esteemed David Devereaux-Weber has said: Hank, Thanks for your help! I installed Python 2.4.4. I did receive errors that tcl and something else didn't install. Now, the Mailman install script still finds /opt/csw/lib/python2.3/distutils/dist.py:213 . Can you tell me where Python 2.4.4 puts the distutils? Dave If you built python 2.4.4 to install in /usr/local, you should have a /usr/local/lib/python2.4 directory that has the distutils in it. I assume you're building Mailman 2.1.9 from downloaded source; if not, I recommend you do that, rather than using somebody else's prebuilt source. Make sure the correct python is in your PATH. If you've already built Mailman with the /opt/csw python2.3, do a make clean, rerun configure, make, and make install on Mailman. As I've said, /opt/csw is not a Solaris 10 directory, but is used by one or more of the package prebuilders. I would do an audit on what is in that directory and pkgrm anything you don't actually need on your system. Using the Solaris release sendmail and apache works well, but I'd build Python 2.4.4 and Mailman 2.1.9 from source. The default gid for sendmail is other and for apache is nobody, for the Mailman configure script on Solaris 9/10. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] Problem with Installing Mailman 2.1.9 on Solaris 10
The esteemed David Devereaux-Weber has said: I'm having a problem with building mailman 2.1.9 on Solaris 10. No problems with configure or make, but make install breaks. Here is an extract: /opt/csw/lib/python2.3/distutils/dist.py:213: There's your problem. Does anyone see something here? You're using the wrong Python. I don't know where you got this Python (/opt/csw is not a Solaris 10 directory), but it's behaving the same as the Python 2.3 that is in the Solaris 10 distribution installed in /usr/sfw. My recollection is that /opt/csw is being used by one or more prebuilt services who have religious tabus about using /usr/local, and presume you've downloaded a prebuilt Python package and installed it. Download the Python 2.4.4 source (not 2.5 or later), configure, and build that. It will not build completely, but what doesn't build (tcl and the ssl functions) isn't needed for Mailman. Solaris 10 comes with gcc 3.4.2 in /usr/sfw/bin, which can be used to build both Python and Mailman. When you've got Python 2.4.4 built and installed, use which python to make sure it's the first one in your path. /usr/local/bin/python Also, on a Solaris system (all versions), I strongly recommend renaming /usr/ucb/cc to something else so that configure scripts don't think the system has a working cc. That particular cc is a shell script stub that is there for historical reasons dating from the original SVR4 specification in 1988. If you have downloaded and installed the Sun development system (Studio 11 is the current marketing name for it) that installs by default in /opt/SUNWspro, use that cc and CC instead of the GNU stuff. Note that you'll have to force the configure scripts not to use gcc when you run them. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] Mm-handler user unknown problem
The esteemed Kammen van, Marco, Springer SBM NL has said: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kammen van, Marco, Springer SBM NL Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2007 4:22 PM To: mailman-users@python.org Subject: [Mailman-Users] Mm-handler user unknown problem Dear All, Using: Red Hat Linux release 9 Mailman 2.1.9 Sendmail 8.12.8 First of all i'm a total sendmail noob so please be nice :-D I've been scrolling through FAQ's mailinglists etc all day and found many people have this problem but didn't find a really good solution for this.. Most problems seem to be related to people forgetting to setup aliases, but in this case i'm using mm-handler which as far as i understand overrides the use of aliases and only needs some address in the virtusertable. (if address doesn't exist in virtusertable then goto mm-handler and get specific mailinglist address) If you are new to sendmail, I would strongly suggest not attempting to use the mm-handler setup for initial setup and test. There is a four-step procedure for doing an initial sendmail configuration and checkout in the archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/msg43689.html The main.mc statements in that document are correct for Sendmail 8.12 and Sendmail 8.13 This setup presumes that you are installing Mailman on the incoming/outgoing mail host. I got everything up and running, made the test list, received the mails from the test list, was able to subscribe people to it using the webinterface, the newly subscribed people also received the mails. Problem is when trying to send a mail to the new mailinglist. 550 5.1.1 [EMAIL PROTECTED]... User unknown This is a fairly clear indication that you do need to install a set of alias pipes to Mailman. On a sendmail installation, you do this manually. bin/genaliases will produced the needed aliases in the proper form for sendmail. You need a full set of aliases for each list you create. It's important to understand that the Mailman aliases are pipes to Mailman scripts. What you are doing is telling the sendmail daemon for incoming mail to bypass normal sendmail spool handling and, instead, to pipe the data to the Mailman qrunners. I'll snip and skip over your configuration data for mm-handler as I don't run that configuration on my sites. I do not know if anyone reading this mail list is using that configuration. For a basic Sendmail-Mailman integration you do not need to enable and configure the mailertable and virtusertable features to support Mailman if you are not using them to support your site Sendmail configuration for regular user accounts. My main concern is the sendmail.cf, i first edited the os delivered sendmail.mc file did some cut pasting from the mailman.mc file then generated the sendmail.cf file using the proper m4 method. Maybe someone can give me a basic sendmail.cf which can be easily used for the basic mail mailman functionality cause the mailman.mc file which comes with the package can't be used cause that one gives lots of errors. Thanks for the help! I'll assume that by mailman.mc you mean main.mc. You can start with the sendmail distribution main.mc file. The only feature that Mailman requires that is not enabled by default is smrsh. FEATURE(smrsh, /usr/lib/smrsh)dnl Make sure that is the location of the smrsh executable on your system. Also make sure that the link in sm.bin points to the correct file. I can't vouch for the correctness of the main.mc statements included in the Mailman distribution contrib directory. If you get M4 assembly errors when making the cf files from the mc/m4 files, then you need to review the statements you are using against the Sendmail information in the O'Reilly Sendmail bat book and the Sendmail FAQ. Most of the statements you will add to the distribution main.mc file are site-specific. If you are new to Sendmail, and doing an initial installation, I'll suggest that you back down to the default Sendmail configuration, do what is necessary to get it to work with local user accounts using a simple MUA to test it, then use the 4-step procedure to integrate Mailman and Sendmail. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] spam, AOL and server names
The esteemed Patrick Bogen has said: To reiterate what Brad said, please see FAQ 3.42. It specifically talks about this issue. On 3/22/07, Dennis Morgan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The percentage of our mail that AOL rejects is just huge - around 90% - I was hoping that maybe someone could see something that we were doing wrong. It'd be nice to get the rejection rate down. Dennis Brad Knowles wrote: See also FAQ 3.42. FAQ 3.42 pretty well covers the issues we see on our installation. One change that I don't see in the FAQ is to put SMTP_MAX_RCPTS = 5 in mm_cfg.py. This may seem absurdly low, compared with the Defaults.py value. I originally set it to 10 and had mails to verizon being deferred until they were time-flushed from the Sendmail queue (five days). Switching to individualized posts for non-digest members made a very obvious difference in deferrals, but the pain persisted for digests. We've simply given up on AOL. We were getting 5.7.1 security bounces with a link to a message that made clear that they were blacklisting us. The pattern we saw doesn't correlate with their claims of users reporting us as spam. We were down to one AOL user, a paraplegic, and ended up having a list member drive to get him set up on another service. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] Trapping messages with null subjects sent to list
The esteemed Mark Sapiro has said: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there a recipe to put in the spam filters that will trap a totally empty subject line in a message? This get posted to a list with (no subject) in the subject line, but this is evidently added after the spam filter check. Try the following regexp in header_filter_rules with a Hold action ^subject:\s*(\(no subject\))?\s*$ I put that line in the spam filter (actually, copied and pasted it). I'm still seeing the first post with a null subject line blasting through without getting trapped. It shows up as (no subject) when distributed by the list, but isn't trapped until it's gone out to the list (too late). All the responses, of course, get trapped by the preexisting trap. I did try subject:\n But that traps a bunch of mangled subject lines where the user's MUA has munged the original to add spaces. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] sendmail and solaris stuff
The esteemed Barry Warsaw has said: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Feb 27, 2007, at 10:44 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Since you guys aren't working with either Sendmail or Solaris, I think it would be best for me to walk through and record the entire process, and give that to you as a basis for inclusion where and however you want to use it. Sounds great Hank, thanks. - -Barry I'm about to post a Sendmail/Mailman step-by-step. I've reduced the process to four steps, but have not repeated the smrsh link step that is already in the installation manual. This is for a simple installation, and I have not addressed things like multiple mail queues or use of a remote mail host. The method in my madness is to try to address the needs of the new-to-sendmail administrator in a get a simple installation working first mode. After thinking about it, I decided not to attempt to discuss such things as configuring sendmail to operate with a remote mail host, multiple mail queues, or name service. I think that all of those are both very site dependent, and adequately covered in the referenced Sendmail documentation. It's a dirt simple approach to doing a new O/S install with Sendmail, Python and Mailman install, and configuring things to work. I did include the main.mc masquerading lines needed to do a 2-domain virtual domain setup, which may seem redundant, as these are Sendmail issues. However, the sendmail.org FAQ for doing virtual domains is broken (or was---last week was last time I checked) and the bat book is deceptively incomplete in its discussion. In addition to addressing Mailman/Sendmail specifics only, I generally take the Ockham's Razor approach to getting something new working (the simplest is the best), along with the corollary to that. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The result may seem absurdly short and intellectually dissatisfying to some, but I don't see any point in making a big project out of what's really a simple job. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
[Mailman-Users] Integrating Sendmail and Solaris (installation guide)
Mailman, in its default configuration, readily integrates with a properly-configured sendmail installation. The discussion below gives specific file locations for a Solaris 9 installation. Solaris 10 locates the sendmail control file sources in /etc/mail/cf rather than /usr/lib/mail/cf. Locations of the sendmail executable and ancillary files are compile-time options for sendmail, so you will need to determine file locations for your specific installation. In our discussion, we also assume that the sendmail MTA that communicates with the Internet backbone and Mailman are installed on the same node (same hardware box). Steps required for a Mailman-sendmail integration: 1. Enable smrsh. Creating the directory links was covered in the previous installation step. In addition, assure that the link to the smrsh program is declared in main.mc. (/usr/lib/mail/cf/main.mc on a Solaris 9 system). FEATURE(smrsh, /usr/lib/smrsh)dnl 2. For each list that you create, you need to add a set of alias pipes to the aliases file (typically /etc/mail/aliases) and run the newaliases program (/usr/sbin/newaliases). If you are following this guide for an initial Mailman installation, you will not be creating lists until later steps. Mailman will give you the alias information when you create a list. Additionaly, the $(prefix)/bin/genaliases script will generate all of aliases needed for all lists that have been created to stdout. These are in the correct format for the sendmail aliases file. 3. Set up sendmail masquerading to correspond to the Mailman configuration. For example, if your installation is on a machine known as myhost.mydomain.net and you create a list to receive mail at [EMAIL PROTECTED], you will need to masquerade as mydomain.net. You will also need to masquerade the sending envelope as well. In its simplest form, the statements in main.mc for doing this are: MASQUERADE_AS(`mydomain.net')dnl FEATURE(`masquerade_envelope')dnl 4. Add the masquerade address to /etc/mail/local-host-names. For the example above, the local-host-names file must have: mydomain.net The above four items cover the basics needed to integrate Mailman with a simple sendmail installation. Except for the need to enable smrsh and to install piping aliases, virtually everything surrounding a Mailman installation supported by the sendmail MTA is specific to sendmail, and some of the above is abstracted from sendmail documentation. This documentation includes: The README included in the sendmail source distribution from http://www.sendmail.org/ Costales, Bryan: Sendmail, 3rd edition, O'Reilly, 2002 This is commonly referred to as the bat book. Costales, Bryan: Sendmail 8.13 Companion, O'Reilly, 2006 Additional resources are the web site and sendmail faq at: http://www.sendmail.org/ Usenet newsgroup comp.mail.sendmail For convenience, we include comments here on sendmail configuration considerations that often come up on the mailman-users list. References are to Costales, Sendmail. A general guiding principle when working with sendmail is to keep it simple. In particular, configure and test your sendmail installation thoroughly, with user accounts running simple MUA's such as elm or mutt, before expecting sendmail to work with Mailman. Virtually all of the problems users encounter with sendmail are visible to simple MUA testing. In particular, do ALL of your sendmail configuration through the M4 macro files, rather than attempting to read and edit the .cf files. Since your M4 files will quickly become site-specific, we recommend copying the the full M4 setup to a local directory, and managing the configuration from there. This will prevent a sendmail upgrade from overlaying your site's configuration, something that has historically been a problem to Solaris users, where a sendmail upgrade is included in a patch cluster. Management of sendmail .cf files through the M4 files is discussed in Sendmail chapter 4. Virtual Domain handling: This refers to the case where a server at mydomain.net handles mail for otherdomain.com. The authoritative DNS for otherdomain.com is set with A and/or MX records pointing to the same IP as that for mydomain.net. Handling this in sendmail is straightforward. Masquerading is covered in detail in Sendmail section 4.4, pp160ff. However, the discussion does not give a complete main.mc file masquerading configuration, which we include here for convenience: MASQUERADE_AS(`mydomain.net')dnl FEATURE(`masquerade_entire_domain')dnl FEATURE(`limited_masquerade')dnl LOCAL_DOMAIN(`mydomain.net otherdomain.com')dnl MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(`mydomain.net')dnl In short, you include all of the domain names you are handling, but only specify masquerading for domains where you need a nodename removed from the canonical name. You also need to add the additional domain(s) to /etc/mail/local-host-names; each domain name on a separate line. Note that local-host-names is actually
Re: [Mailman-Users] Slow delivery
The esteemed Brad Knowles has said: At 8:46 PM -0700 3/8/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Maybe this is a good time to ask just how DNS-intensive the non-sendmail MTA's are. I am finishing off the basics on installing sendmail with Mailman, and am including some discussion of the need to install a good fast-response caching DNS server to work with sendmail. All MTAs I know of are pretty DNS-intensive in their operation. The more anti-spam or anti-virus filtering you do, or the more other things you do to check the incoming mail, the more DNS-intensive that work is going to be. Of course, most MTAs should give you options on how to configure them so that they don't generate any DNS traffic at all, but then what you're doing is effectively turning off about 99.99% of what the MTA is intended to do when handling mail. Thanks for the confirmation of what I'd suspected. Since I've lived with sendmail ever since there was a sendmail (not true, I think more like since 1988), I haven't tried to work with the other MTA's. The need for a quick, robust, and reliable name service is in the nature of the beast, particularly when supporting a mail list server, where one incoming mail goes out to a thousand (if not thousands) addresses. I'm not going to try to address LDAP, NIS or NIS+. It takes about ten minutes to set up the tables for named for a caching server. That is what I would recommend for the shop that's currenly using /etc/hosts and remote (i.e. somebody else's) DNS servers for everything external. Since then I've installed master and slave servers for my Intranet LAN, but I would heartly recommend having at least a plain caching server on the box that's running the MTA. Years ago, this was actually a bit of a sore point amongst the experts. Some said that you were better off having a smaller number of centralized caching nameservers, which handled all DNS traffic for the entire network. Others said that you're better off having caching nameservers running on each box, to spread that load out. I'm going to snip this discussion of how to configure DNS on a site here. For one thing, I think that we need to keep the focus on Mailman, and simply answer the question do you need local name service with Mailman? with Yes. For another, Cricket Liu and Paul Albitz, in the current 5th edition (2006) of DNS and BIND have done a very good job of discussing far more of the ins and outs of configuring DNS in a 600-page book. They devote an entire chapter to DNS with Unix mail. For Mailman support purposes, for both sendmail and DNS, I think we need to focus on a keep it simple approach. Both my site and the former Mailman host site for my primary list are one worker, one box, one routable IP sites, where Mailman, Apache, sendmail, and named all get handled on a single node. I also administer another ISP site 400 miles away (along with five others) that has separate boxes for login server, mail server, web server, news server, NFS RAID server, and two DNS servers, all with their own routable IP's. We did put Mailman on that site as well. Suffice it to say that there are a few differences in sendmail, apache, and named configurations between those two sites, none of which affect Mailman. So I'd have to say, Mailman with sendmail and BIND DNS, yes, very easy to do. Follow Barry Warsaw's excellent Mailman build guide, go through four steps to configure sendmail (I'm about to send this off to the list), configure your DNS per Liu and Albitz, and go. Needless to say, doing this on an earthlink-sized system and doing it on a one-box oldfogey.net system aren't the same in many ways that are quite separate from Mailman considerations. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] Nomail members
The esteemed Brad Knowles has said: At 9:19 PM -0700 3/8/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tell me that isn't true, Mark. From this mail list administrator's perspective, I can't find/use my password ranks just below the AOL flaming demands that we unsubscribe them NOW! Who needs periodic reminders, when there will be a reset mechanism that the user can make use of at any time of their choosing? I'm sorry, I'm just not seeing the reason why you would ever want to continue using the reminder mechanism, when you can just go to a page, enter in your e-mail address, and have the system generate a new password for you and send it to you by e-mail. If three years as a Mailman mail list administrator has taught me anything, it is Never underestimate the inability of list members to use the user member management resources of Mailman. That begins with an inability to click on the links we put on headers and footers to get to their options page, much less clicking on the button that mails a password refresher to them. Then there's the group who are running something like Windows ME who are adamant that my time is too valuable for me to learn anything. What are we going to do, kick them off the list with a learn-ya damn-ya! I certainly feel that way at times. So does my partner. These are the hard realities of the Consumer Internet. The last thing my partner and I **need** is a Unix-like encrypted password and having to reset passwords as root. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] mailman an sendmail receiveing mails
The esteemed TRON478 has said: hi, i have set up mailman on a suse machine with sendmail. when i open the administration site and subscribe i get mails (), but when i sent to the list, the mail never arrives. i have added the aliases in the alias file: ## point mailing list point: |/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman post point point-admin:|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman admin point (snip) and used the command newaliases with no errors. MTA is manual. whats wrong? Your aliases file looks correct. I'm not sure what you mean by manual. Sendmail normally runs as background daemons. smmsp 6626 1 0 Feb 17 ?0:01 /usr/lib/sendmail -Ac -q15m root 6628 1 0 Feb 17 ?1:29 /usr/lib/sendmail -bd -q15m Check that all your Mailman qrunners are running. mailman 6903 1110 0 Mar 02 ?0:01 /usr/local/bin/python /usr/local/mailman/bin/qrunner --runner=RetryRunner:0:1 - mailman 6902 1110 0 Mar 02 ?0:01 /usr/local/bin/python /usr/local/mailman/bin/qrunner --runner=CommandRunner:0:1 mailman 6897 1110 0 Mar 02 ?1:20 /usr/local/bin/python /usr/local/mailman/bin/qrunner --runner=BounceRunner:0:1 mailman 6901 1110 0 Mar 02 ? 37:35 /usr/local/bin/python /usr/local/mailman/bin/qrunner --runner=ArchRunner:0:1 -s mailman 6898 1110 0 Mar 02 ? 46:29 /usr/local/bin/python /usr/local/mailman/bin/qrunner --runner=OutgoingRunner:0: mailman 6899 1110 0 Mar 02 ?2:47 /usr/local/bin/python /usr/local/mailman/bin/qrunner --runner=IncomingRunner:0: vancleef 602 493 0 10:24:12 pts/30:00 grep qrun mailman 6900 1110 0 Mar 02 ?0:44 /usr/local/bin/python /usr/local/mailman/bin/qrunner --runner=VirginRunner:0:1 mailman 6904 1110 0 Mar 02 ?0:01 /usr/local/bin/python /usr/local/mailman/bin/qrunner --runner=NewsRunner:0:1 -s If you can send mail to and from a local non-Mailman account, then your sendmail installation is OK. Important thing is to configure sendmail properly and test it first. You should have sendmail checked out and running in daemon mode before trying to integrate it with Mailman Try sending mail to the -owner account (point-owner) and see if it gets sent to the list administrator addresses. That bypasses any options in the Mailman configuration that apply to list postings. Once that is working try sending a message to your list address. Read your logs. Sendmail shows the send to Mailman (example below, includes demime filter in the pipe) Mar 5 05:32:12 julie sendmail[18773]: [ID 801593 mail.info] l25CW9qH018772: to= |/usr/local/mailman/bin/demime -8bit -x '==' '==/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman post mylist', ctladdr=[EMAIL PROTECTED] (1/0), delay=00:00:02, xde lay=00:00:02, mailer=prog, pri=33715, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent That says that the message went to Mailman. Go to the Mailman logs and check them. If Mailman is not sending out messages to list addresses, the logs generally tell you why it isn't. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] Slow delivery
The esteemed Dragon has said: This may just be the time needed to resolve the dns lookups for the outgoing mail. You may want to consider using a caching dns resolver to cache the sddresses for some reasonable period. Getting the resolved addresses out of cache will be much faster than attempting to resolve them over the network every time. Then again, I could be completely off here and something else is causing the delay. I don't know Exim at all and sendmail only in the barest manner so I cannot be much help beyond this. Maybe this is a good time to ask just how DNS-intensive the non-sendmail MTA's are. I am finishing off the basics on installing sendmail with Mailman, and am including some discussion of the need to install a good fast-response caching DNS server to work with sendmail. There is very little discussion in the sendmail literature about DNS, except for an acknowledgement that sendmail uses DNS intensively if it's in the hosts line in nsswitch.conf (Solaris name). I have to confess that I was a bit slow on the uptake to install local DNS on my systems. The folks at upstream feed, whose DNS servers I was using, said, you do plan to install local DNS, don't you, with a certain pointedness. I dawdled until I could get the 5th edition of Liu and Albitz DNS and BIND (O'Reilly, 2006), which has a chapter on DNS and SMTP mail, and after reading through sat down to install a caching server immediately. The results were just plain startling. I wish I'd done this five years ago. Since then I've installed master and slave servers for my Intranet LAN, but I would heartly recommend having at least a plain caching server on the box that's running the MTA. While all of my experience is with sendmail, I'm inclined to suspect that the other MTA's all can stand a shot of local DNS service. Anybody who can confirm this for Postfix, Exim, etc.? Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] Trouble with mailman external responses
The esteemed Barry Warsaw has said: Which ISP do you use? I have a static IP from my cable company but they refuse to give me an rDNS entry. In every other way, I really like them, but I do get bounces occasionally from people's (IMHO) misconfigured MTAs who don't accept mail from cable rDNSs. - -Barry Barry, I'm going to disagree with you on this one. Virtually all of the spam that gets through the various filters on my box comes from big-service dynamic IP's right here in the US. Right now, I'm trying to home in on some of this spam, and am operating under the assumption that I've got two or three users with infected Microsoft systems sending out port 25 mail without their knowledge. I've pinned down a couple of others. These users haven't got the foggiest notion that there is anything wrong, what is wrong, why it is wrong, or what to do about it, and that seems to be a common affliction among consumer users with always-on internet connectivity. My own site has two IP's, with their own identities separate from my upstream feed, with reverse lookups properly configured, and no port blocking either way. It took some time, discussion, and a couple of very serious technical interviews with their people before they agreed to that. They consider me a commercial site with competent on-site administration, and terms and conditions which are quite different from consumer sites. I'd really call a sendmail receiving site that blocks dynamic IP mail as misconfigured, when virtually all of the mail coming from such IP's is spam. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
[Mailman-Users] Trapping messages with null subjects sent to list
Is there a recipe to put in the spam filters that will trap a totally empty subject line in a message? This get posted to a list with (no subject) in the subject line, but this is evidently added after the spam filter check. I've tried \n, which catches these, but it also catches too many responses where the responder has changed the original subject as well. Virtually all of these null-subject posts we get are demands to unsubscribe the poster. On our lists, we'd settle for catching them as administrative requests. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] sendmail and solaris stuff
The esteemed Barry Warsaw has said: Thanks Hank. I haven't used Sendmail in 20 years, so if there is some specific text you'd like to see added (or preferably a patch to the latex file), please feel free to send it directly to me and I'll push up a doc update. Barry (and Mark) Just to acknowledge your note. I am installing Mailman on a Solaris 10 cold O/S install, and am right at the point in the install manual where I have to configure sendmail to work with Mailman. This is the fourth or fifth time I've gone through the process, so as they say in the automotive trades, I'm able to make flat rate. Since you guys aren't working with either Sendmail or Solaris, I think it would be best for me to walk through and record the entire process, and give that to you as a basis for inclusion where and however you want to use it. I'll note that the sendmail.org faq on setting up virtual domains is broken, and while the bat book covers doing it, the discussion is not complete. I think that including the relevant part of the main.mc file, as well as the configuration of the local-domain-name file (known as the cw file), to give the novice admin. all of what is needed to set up a virtual domain system might be wise. That would save you guys from having to answer FAQ questions constantly. Mark, I still owe you a how-to on moving an existing list to a new host. Your notes on my first stab at it made clear that I was overcomplicating things. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] Confirmation and sent messages not
The esteemed Mark Sapiro has said: Jason Luck wrote: Why is the default in DaemonPortOptions set for 127.0.0.1 as opposed to a broader range? It would seem most folks would want to be able to external mail through their box and from what I'm learning would require the 127.0.0.1 to be changed. Also by changing this...does one open themselve up to security issues? These are good questions, but they are Sendmail questions. There are whole books (e.g. the 'bat' book) devoted to Sendmail, and I haven't read any of them. The important thing is to not be an open relay - i.e. only accept mail from outside for local delivery; do not accept mail from outside to be relayed to another outside location; only accept 'outside delivery' mail from the localhost. I would think that the default Sendmail configuration would not be an open relay, but I don't know. There are various services, e.g., http://www.abuse.net/relay.html, that will test to see if your server is an open relay. Speaking from the vantage point of a sendmail user, I think virtually all of the issues involving sendmail+Mailman are basic sendmail configuration issues. In short, that means that if sendmail+Mailman are not working properly, odds are that sendmail is not working properly with a simple MUA like elm or mutt. Test your configuration for both incoming mail from the Internet backbone and outgoing mail to it. If your Mailman installation is going to take mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], then set up a local user account as [EMAIL PROTECTED] and use it to check out your sendmail installation. Once you have your sendmail working properly, Mailman is a very simple drop-in. The defaults in the distribution Defaults.py are correct for a simple sendmail configuration; you don't have to override anything in mm_cfg.py. One step that you do have to perform, that I do not see in Barry Warsaw's otherwise-excellent Mailman build-install manual is the need to add the Mailman address pipes to the sendmail aliases file, and run newaliases. This has to be done for each list. The aliases list that Mailman generates when you create a list is correct for sendmail; just copy it into the aliases file and run newaliases. Barry's manual does include a comprehensive and clear how-to on adding smrsh (sendmail restricted shell) for Mailman. However, you also have to add FEATURE(smrsh, /usr/lib/smrsh)dnl to your main.mc file and recompile. Don't try to manage sendmail by editing the .cf files. Use the .mc (and .m4) files for everything. You absolutly need to have the O'Reilly book Sendmail, commonly referred to as the bat book because it has a picture of a bat on the cover. The recent O'Reilly Sendmail 8.13 Companion is another must-have, and is valuable not only for the 8.13 references, but for a lot of information that clarifies thing about sendmail in general. The bat book is 1200 pages of information and nothing if not comprehensive. Additional resources are the Sendmail FAQ and the Usenet newsgroup comp.mail.sendmail. You'll get answers there AFTER you summarize your researches in the bat book and the FAQ. On relaying: the distribution sendmail sources should compile with all relaying disabled. If you are running a Solaris system with the Sun sendmail distribution, you have to change the DOMAIN statements in both main.mc and subsidiary.mc to DOMAIN(`solaris-antispam')dnl For reasons known only to $DEITIES, Sun distributes sendmail with relaying enabled. On any other installation, the bat book has a comprehensive section (several pages) on relaying, and it will tell you exactly what to check and how to turn on the relaying you need, if any. Virtually everything I've covered above is covered in the sendmail literature in copious detail. One additional comment that I haven't seen clearly outlined in any documentation, except perhaps the O'Reilly book DNS and BIND 5th edition (2006) is that sendmail is DNS-intensive. If you are running Mailman lists, you should have, at minimum, a caching DNS server on your local network. This is both a performance and a netiquette issue. In short, don't flood somebody else's DNS with your Mailman lookups, flood your own. For best performance, put a DNS server of some sort on the same box that is running Mailman. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
[Mailman-Users] list member address change by moderator
Is there a mechanism for a list administrator to change a list member address without going through the confirmation dialog. I've got a case where [EMAIL PROTECTED] wants to become [EMAIL PROTECTED] While the confirmation goes to newisp.com and requires the listmember response, I'd prefer to have a just do it now administrator method. Is there one? Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] Confirmation and sent messages not
The esteemed Mark Sapiro has said: Jason Luck wrote: Thanks for the response, unfortunately my limited knowledge on these matters leaves me at a dead end. Not sure how to change any of these items or where to go from here. You fix it in your sendmail configuration by telling sendmail to listen for port 25 connects from anywhere. I can't tell you how to do that because I don't know. Perhaps you can read some sendmail documentation or ask on a sendmail list. I'll chime in with some quick observations (I run sendmail 8.13.8 on Solaris 9). The two first places I'd look are: 1. The tcp-ip services file (/etc/inet/services on Solaris) needs a line that says: smtp 25/tcp mail 2. There needs to be a sendmail -bd daemon running. That is the one that listens for incoming smtp. I don't see anything specific to port 25 in the .cf files. I would also check any router/firewall between your sendmail client machine to make sure that incoming port 25 traffic is not being blocked; also any ipfilter setup. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
[Mailman-Users] Adding Mhonarc to existing Mailman installation
I am building a new Mailman 2.1.9 installation tree, and want to configure it with Mhonarc and Mnogosearch. I notice that the Mhonarc patches change the config.pck version number from 96 to 96.2 because there seem to be some changes to the file definition. I have signed up on the mmi mailman-mnogosearch mail list and see what's involved, but have mailman-specific questions. What happens if I move a config.pck running on stock 2.1.9 (version 96) to this new tree? Is there something in Mailman that figures out how to remunge the config.pck file? Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] Best version of Python to use with Mailman
The esteemed Brad Knowles has said: Use the latest version of 2.4.x. As you've demonstrated, the 2.5 stuff is not yet fully baked, and Mailman 2.1.8 and earlier are not compatible with it. $DEITY-only-knows what else they're going to break in the process of trying to fix 2.5. I'll update the FAQ Wizard to reflect this. Thanks for the feedback. I think that for Mailman purposes, the good news is that the partial build of Python 2.5 using Sun's C compiler has been online production for several weeks and hasn't crashed yet. However, after assessing the Python build situation, I think that a back-down to 2.4.4 would be wise. I did post details of what I've done with the Python 2.4.4 and 2.5 build trees to the python-help mail list. What I got was a suggestion to take it to the python-dev list, which I've done. At this point, either I'm missing something pretty basic and reinventing the wheel, or I've smoked out some long-standing issues with Python build-install, not all of which are specific to Solaris. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
[Mailman-Users] Best version of Python to use with Mailman 2.1.9?
Now that I've got Mailman up and running relatively smoothly in production mode, I've taken some time to revisit questions primarily involving Python. The Mailman installation I am running has several non-standard lashups and workarounds that really need some cleanup, and Mark Sapiro has convinced me that using Python resources for that work, plus some extensions, is something I ought to consider seriously. I was aware, when I downloaded the Mailman 2.1.9 sources, that the recommended Python is given as 2.4.3. A trip to the Python site showed that 2.4.4 was the latest in that chain, and strongly suggested the current version, 2.5. Since I was under severe time pressure to get my site up and running, I did fairly simple ./configure, make, make test, and make install runs, which produced a usable installation, ending up with the Python 2.5 version. However, I was aware that the Python 2.5 build was not particularly complete, and there were a few regression tests that failed. Accordingly, I've audited the Python build situation for both 2.4.4 and 2.5 on Sun Sparc Solaris 9 and 10, using various versions of gcc and Studio 11 (the Sun Solaris devsys, formerly Forte). The situtation turned out to be far worse than I had thought, and turned into something of a porting effort. I'm left with a nagging impression that perhaps I should fall back to Python 2.4.4. I tried to weave my way through the Sourceforge bug tracker to find out whether I was reinventing the wheel and was unable to pull up some bug reports listed in the README's in the Python 2.5 distribution that pertained to problems I was seeing on my builds. Do the Mailman developers have strong feelings about Python 2.4.4 vs. 2.5? Getting both versions of Python to find needed libraries and include files for such things as Tcl/Tk turned out to be a small matter of reworking the distribution setup.py. Once I realized that Makefiles and environment arguments didn't seem to influence the Python modules invoked during the build process, adding the needed code to the Python modules got results. There were also some minor corrections to existing Python code. It leaves me with a strong impression that I'm sailing in uncharted water. I'm a bit dismayed to discover that Python 2.5 includes a ctypes extension with a very GNU-specific libfbbi implementation. The only thing I could find to compile it was a local build of gcc 4.1.1. Other versions of gcc, including the gcc 3.4.3 that is included with the Solaris 10 O/S, failed to build this library properly. My preference is for a build using the Studio 11 devsys. I can live without a working ctypes in 2.5. But considering the basic changes needed to get either 2.4.4 or 2.5 to do something resembling a complete build, I'm concerned about reliability and robustness. Python is a new language to me, and while I'm beginning to get my arms around it, I think that learning it by getting the distribution to build is a strange way to go about this learning. In short, should I fall back to 2.4.4? Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] Challenge/Response
The problem remains, however: How do I prevent spoofing? In this case they have a real fear due to a board member who is soon to be ejected from the board and have organizational membership taken away. They feel he is capable (both emotionally and technically) of major disturbances on one or more of about a dozen mailing lists the organization maintains. What makes this even more of a challenge¹ is that the account is on a shared server. I think that you're trying to deal with a sociological problem here. I'll presume that the organization is prepared to make a statement about this personnel action. In general, that's a Public Relations issue, not a technological one. I'll also presume that the individual who is involved does not have administrative access (root, etc.) to the Mailman host site. The site administrator(s) need to be informed of the action that is about to take place, and told to secure the site appropriately, etc. So far as handling any fall-out from this action on one or more mail lists, I'll suggest that you have list moderators (list administrator level, but the job is moderation) prepared to weather developments. It would be very wise to have somebody in a list administration role who is prepared to handle Public Relations handling of the fallout from this action. Technically, start with embargoing the individual's known accounts (unsubscribe, or at least put on moderation, and use the Mailman filters to catch probable variations, prevent posting from non-registered addresses, and require moderator review of new subscriptions). Then, wait for developments. Experience with this sort of thing suggests that the problem individual will try to post, and will ultimately succeed, but will have built up such a head of steam that the post will lose whatever support the individual might have had. Mailman has some very good resources a savvy moderator can use effectively for damage control. The ultimate weapon, of course, is putting the entire list on emergency moderation. I won't go into detail here, but the major list I set up a Mailman host site for survived a split between the two co-founders, in which one was fired, about three years ago. The individual who was removed did have several bogey addresses, and once he discovered that his main addresses were moderated, blew a fuse and posted a couple of real flames, some months afterward. Net effect: six resignations (out of 2500 members), and some offlist discussion about if this is the way the guy really is, who needs him? Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] Challenge/response
I have a client who is concerned about his list subscriber addresses being spoofed. In other words someone who knows the addresses of people on the list can set up a mail server and spoof the subscriber so he can post nasty things to the list. He would like to set up a challenge/response mechanism so that when [EMAIL PROTECTED] posts to the list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] gets sent a copy of the message and must confirm that he/she was the sender before it gets posted. I don¹t see any configuration in Mailman for this. Is it possible? Challenge-response is a well-known spam relay issue, and very undesirable. Mailman privacy options allow you to force moderation of mail purportedly coming from specific addresses You should also investigate methods using your MTA or adding a filter to the mailman address input, and not even think about challenge-response. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
[Mailman-Users] mailman user account and login
I thought I'd pose this question to the list. The mailman installation manual seems to imply that the mailman account should be added with no ability to log in to it. I translated what appeared to me to be the sense of the line given to Solaris. However, after having gone through several fire drills of resetting file owner from root to mailman, I've set the account up with the directory /usr/local/mailman and NP in the /etc/shadow file. This allows me to su - mailman from root, but not to get a login from anywhere else. This is the same setup as is used for other Solaris blind accounts. Is there any real reason not to use the account this way? I'm aware that Mailman security is based on group identity, not user, but external programs such as htdig running under cron need to have uid mailman in files it writes to or to be set up as a mailman-uid program. My personal preference is to set the needed uid's in the mailman runtime tree. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] Mailman installation on Solaris 10 crashes
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Feb 2, 2007, at 1:25 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: crashing on install of the Japanese and Korean Codecs. I swapped some offlist E-mails with Barry Sapiro and told him that I would I'm almost afraid to ask who Barry Sapiro is. Is that some kind of mashup of me and Mark? :) And another WHOOPS! Another over-the-hill geezer special. But since I saw the backside of the big 70 a while back, I suppose I'm entitled to one once in a while. WHOOPS! What is with the very clear /opt/sfw/lib/python2.3 when I just installed 2.5 and put it in /usr/local/bin? I would additionally make sure /usr/local/bin is first on your $PATH. There is a great deal of discussion (and some religious fervor) on the Solaris newsgroups about having (or refusing to have) a /usr/local directory on a Solaris system. The anti faction has some very strong points. Putting the /usr filesystem on its own filesystem mounted read-only is a good security measure. I bypass the arguments by putting /usr/local on its own filesystem. A better PATH layout for Solaris 9 or 10 would probably end with /usr/ccs/bin:/usr/local/bin:/opt/sfw/bin:/usr/sfw/bin Those directories all have to be added locally to the Solaris distribution defaults. Sun has moved to including more and more of what was known to Unix developers as the GNU suite in Solaris in the /usr/sfw directory, with some GNU things (bash, gzip) in /usr/bin. Time was (Solaris 2.5.1) that the GNU suite was all add-on from packages on the bonus software companion disk. What I'm working out is a suitable layout for a Solaris 10 development system that requires a minimum of jiggery-pokery for compiling various open source software packages. The system that actually runs Mailman in production is a different minimally-configured hardened-up Solaris box. A lot of this is OS-specific and site-specific, and probably discussion here should be limited to getting Python and Mailman installed. An additional (and very well-known) Solaris gotcha is the error line /usr/ucb/cc: language optional software package not installed Evidently, the Solaris Python looks for a cc in the path. /usr/ucb/cc is simply a stub that most Solaris sysadmins rename or move after installation. The Sun Studio 11 native compiler is probably compatible with it, but there is still the objection to using an older Python. It's actually probably the Makefile that's finding /usr/ucb/cc. Pretty well-known failure mode on Solaris. Make sure a usable C compiler (either named gcc or cc wink) is first on your $PATH. No doubt. What I posted was the result of some offlist discussions I had with Mark about problems building Mailman on Solaris that were posted here a week or so ago. I offered to investigate a few of these on a fresh install of Solaris 10 11/06 before I had fully configured the box to my normal layout. Ultimately, that box will be configured to use the Sun development system (Studio 11, has cc and CC wink). There are decisions that a Solaris administrator has to make, such as whether to download and compile sendmail, apache, and bind; or to use the Sun distribution versions. I think that the decision is clear about Python---download and build your own, and configure your system so that it is the Python of choice on your site. (I'll note in passing that I didn't like the looks of the additional compiling in the Python install, and am going to go back to revisit that). Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
[Mailman-Users] Mailman installation on Solaris 10 crashes
A couple of weeks ago there were two or three posts about Mailman crashing on install of the Japanese and Korean Codecs. I swapped some offlist E-mails with Barry Sapiro and told him that I would investigate this for him when I did a fresh install of Solaris 10 on a box to be used as a Mailman mail server. Accordingly, this afternoon I did a default Jumpstart install of the Solaris 10 entire package on an Ultra 60 and added a gcc 3.3 development system from a Solaris Software Companion disk. One additional item was to set the install default path to pick up needed directories that are not included in the Solaris base install. PATH=$PATH:/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/sfw/bin:/usr/local/bin:/opt/sfw/bin The last three directories in that order are significant. I did a build and install of Python 2.5 in /usr/local, and configured Mailman with the needed mail and cgi gid statments, then ran a make. Make install failed. The key section in the installation output is this: (cd ./$p ; umask 02 ; PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/mailman/pythonlib /usr/sfw/bin/p ython setup.py --quiet install --install-lib /usr/local/mailman/pythonlib --ins tall-purelib /usr/local/mailman/pythonlib --install-data /usr/local/mailman/pyt honlib); \ done /usr/sfw/lib/python2.3/distutils/dist.py:213: UserWarning: 'licence' distribution option is deprecated; use 'license' warnings.warn(msg) /usr/ucb/cc: language optional software package not installed error: command '/usr/sfw/lib/python2.3/pycc' failed with exit status 1 *** Error code 1 make: Fatal error: Command failed for target `install-packages' Current working directory /usr/local/src/mailman-2.1.9/misc WHOOPS! What is with the very clear /opt/sfw/lib/python2.3 when I just installed 2.5 and put it in /usr/local/bin? Yes, Sun has included an older version of Python in the Solaris 10 distribution. To build and install with a locally-built Python, you have to put --with-python=/path/to/python as a flag to the configure script. Doing so produced a clean make and install. Note that while the fact that the wrong version of Python is not clearly evident until the installation crashes, the make step is also done with the same version. As of this writing, I don't know what issues this raises for Mailman at runtime. Nor do I know what issues are raised if the offending packages are removed. The actual version reported is 2.3.3, and pkginfo includes the notation GNOME, so the runtime, at least, has some involvement if you are using the gnome desktop. An additional (and very well-known) Solaris gotcha is the error line /usr/ucb/cc: language optional software package not installed Evidently, the Solaris Python looks for a cc in the path. /usr/ucb/cc is simply a stub that most Solaris sysadmins rename or move after installation. The Sun Studio 11 native compiler is probably compatible with it, but there is still the objection to using an older Python. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
[Mailman-Users] Can't create a new list
I'm trying to create a new list on a Mailman 2.1.9 installation. The list is set up at www.mydomain.net with virtual hosting of otherdomain.com. When I use either www.mydomain.net or www.otherdomain.com to get to mailman/create, and try to create the new list, every try returns me Error: Unknown virtual host www.domain.ext for attempts to create under either domain. How can I create a new list successfully? I need to create lists in both domains. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
Re: [Mailman-Users] migrating Mailman server
I have the task of setting up a replacement for an existing Mailman/Postfix server. I am new to Mailman and I am looking for some guidance in this transition. Mailman is currently being used solely as a diffusion of information. That is, it does not accept contributions from list members (read-only). Firstly, should I attempt to migrate data/files over to the new system or should I start fresh? The new system will be running OpenBSD 4.0. I have just moved a 9-year-old list from another installation to mine, and have a draft how-to faq on how I did it that isn't quite ready for prime time. Since I know there isn't any clear information on this in the current mailman FAQ tree, I'll give the salient points fairly briefly. I'm sure that the Mailman developers will want to comment, so I'll let them do the talking after posting this. It's fairly easy to do a seamless migration of an old Mailman list's personality and history into a new Mailman install. Based on a migration from Mailman 2.1.4 to 2.1.9, what you need from the old installation are: (base directory is the old mailman tree, typically /usr/local/mailman) 1. All of the files under the ./lists/listname directory. 2. All of the files under the ./archives/private/listname directory. 3. ./Mailman/mm_cfg.py 4. Any other files in the ./archives directory with listname in their names. A tar of those directory trees plus the mm_cfg.py file gives you the old list's configuration, personality, membership data base, and archives. On your new system, do a new installation of Mailman at the revision level that the old list was running on. I was moving from a 2.1.4 installation, and building from source, so had to get the Mailman 2.1.4 sources. Follow the instructions in the build and installation guide on the Mailman web site exactly (don't plan on just running configure and doing a make---there is a lot more you need to do). On the fresh installation, create a new list with the same name as the one you are moving. For example, if you're moving from [EMAIL PROTECTED], create a new waffles list. Use that newly-created list to check out your installation. You can add a few local list member names to convenient mail addresses on your site, and use this to check out the integration with your mailer and web server. Use the old list's mm_cfg.py as a guide in chosing what to put in your installation's mm_cfg.py. Once you have your installation running, take a look in the ./list/listname directory. You'll find config.pck. Check its owner/group and permissions. Copy the old list's config.pck file into the new installation's directory and set its owner/group and permissions to match. Run the fix_url script as needed to get the correct URL for your new installation installed. If there are html files in the old list's list/listname directory (template file overlays), copy them over as well. You should now be able to go to the listinfo page for the list, go into the mailman administrator options page, and review such things as the administrator/moderator addresses and settings, list mailto address, etc. Double check that the link-across URL's between pages are correct for your installation. Populate the archives directories. I still haven't worked out the best way for doing this, but you'll need the pipermail archives directories and files, and control files that the old Mailman created. The ./bin/check_perms script will help you getting all the owner/group and permissions set properly (Mailman is quite fussy about these). You should now have your old list completely installed on your new site. From there, you can build the current versions of Python (2.5), Mailman (2.1.9) and do an upgrade installation. Hank -- Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=showamp;file=faq01.027.htp
