1. I had foolishly neglected to finish the installation process. Hints were supplied by Dan Phillips off-list:
At 11:59 AM -0500 7/18/04, Dan Phillips wrote:
the most common causes of this are outlined in the FAQ at http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq01.007.htp
The MOST common cause in a new installation is that you haven't started the mailmanctl daemon.
2. But even after I finished the installation, none of the aliases worked yet. The solution turns out to depend on sendmail, the default MTA on Redhat Linux, and the fact that I'm running non-static virtual domains (virtual domains that don't each have their own IP number).
The aliases in this case need to be in TWO places:
1. /etc/aliases - this is where the aliases go that Mailman's reply message (after you create a new group) mentions.
2. the virtusertable for the domain you're using: /scripts/domain_name.virtusertable .
I found this somewhere, but can't find the reference. So here's the two sets of aliases for a list called "supportivecoaching" on the domain storytellingcoach.com:
To add to /etc/aliases:
supportivecoaching: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman post supportivecoaching"
supportivecoaching-admin: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman admin supportivecoaching"
supportivecoaching-bounces: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman bounces supportivecoaching"
supportivecoaching-confirm: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman confirm supportivecoaching"
supportivecoaching-join: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman join supportivecoaching"
supportivecoaching-leave: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman leave supportivecoaching"
supportivecoaching-owner: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman owner supportivecoaching"
supportivecoaching-request: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman request supportivecoaching"
supportivecoaching-subscribe: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman subscribe supportivecoaching"
supportivecoaching-unsubscribe: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman unsubscribe supportivecoaching"
(then run newaliases)
To add to /scripts/storytellingcoach.com.virtusertable:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] supportivecoaching
[EMAIL PROTECTED] supportivecoaching-admin
[EMAIL PROTECTED] supportivecoaching-bounces
[EMAIL PROTECTED] supportivecoaching-confirm
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] supportivecoaching-leave
[EMAIL PROTECTED] supportivecoaching-owner
[EMAIL PROTECTED] supportivecoaching-request
[EMAIL PROTECTED] supportivecoaching-subscribe
[EMAIL PROTECTED] supportivecoaching-unsubscribe
(it may help to restart sendmail at this point? I'm guessing)
Once these are added, the email functions start to work (confirmation of new users via email, sending of emails to the list).
3. There was one more thing that confused me in the INSTALL file:
- Find out where your Sendmail executes its smrsh wrapper
% grep smrsh /etc/mail/sendmail.cf
- Figure out where smrsh expects symlinks for allowable filter programs. At the very beginning of the following output you will see a full path to some directory, e.g. /var/adm/sm.bin or similar:
% strings $path_to_smrsh | less
- cd into /var/adm/sm.bin, or where ever it happens to reside on your system, such as /etc/smrsh, /var/smrsh or /usr/local/smrsh.
% cd /var/adm/sm.bin
- create a symbolic link to Mailman's wrapper program
% ln -s /usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman mailman
This perplexed me, for two reasons. First, when I ran the grep smrsh line, I found my way to a FILE called smrsh (not a directory). Second, when I ran the "strings" command using that path, I got a first line in the output that included a full path to /lib/ld-linux.so.2, which was no use at all.
Lois Lew was kind enough to Google some pages of discussion about this issue (e.g., <http://www.lula.org/pipermail/lula/2004-April/003010.html> and <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2002-January/016760.html>. Reading these finally set me right. The key is that, in Redhat, there actually is a directory called smrsh, located at /etc/smrsh. When you follow the directions using that path, everything works. (One note about the discussions: in previous versions of Mailman, the term "wrapper" was used instead of "mailman".)
4. The last issue was related to my complete ignorance about Apache. I tried inserting the alias to pipermail and the ScriptAlias line (as described in the INSTALL) into /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf . That worked! But the next time I rebuilt Apache, Mailman stopped working. It turns out that, at least in my installation, httpd.conf is rebuilt every time, based on httpd.conf.main. Once I made the changes in httpd.conf.main instead, everything worked - and is so far still working!
I hope this helps save some time for the next newbie down the road!
Doug Lipman
At 3:04 PM -0700 7/22/04, Alec Bennett wrote:
Hey, I saw your posting about setting up Mailman on Redhat 9. Sounds like we're
having the exact same problems. Did you ever find a solution?
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2004-July/038114.html
I'm now to the point where administrative task emails go out (subscription
notifications, etc.) but none of the actual list emails do, and the archives are
all empty.
Thanks for any help, this is driving me crazy.
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