1
Mailman - The GNU Mailing List Management System
2
Copyright (C) 1998,1999,2000,2001,2002 by the Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3
59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA
5
Note: We're migrating the FAQ to an on-line interactive system called
6
"FAQ Wizard". To see the Mailman FAQ Wizard in action, go to
7
http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py
9
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
11
Q. How do you spell this program?
13
A. You spell it "Mailman", with a leading capital "M" and a lowercase
14
second "m". It is incorrect to spell it "MailMan" (i.e. you should
17
Q. I'm getting really terrible performance for outgoing messages. It
18
seems that if the MTA has trouble resolving DNS for any recipients,
19
qrunner just gets really slow clearing the queue. Any ideas?
21
A. What's likely happening is that your MTA is doing DNS resolution on
22
recipients for messages delivered locally (i.e. from Mailman to
23
your MTA via SMTPDirect.py). This is a Bad Thing. You need to
24
turn off synchronous DNS resolution for messages originating from
27
In Exim, the value to edit is receiver_verify_hosts. See
28
README.EXIM for details. Other MTAs have (of course) different
29
parameters and defaults that control this. First check the README
30
file for your MTA and then consult your MTA's own documentation.
32
Q. My list members are complaining about Mailman's List-* headers!
33
What can I do about this?
35
A. These headers are described in RFC 2369 and are added by Mailman
36
for the long-term benefit of end-users. While discouraged, the
37
list admin can disable these via the General Options page. See
38
also README.USERAGENT for more information.
40
Q. Can I put the user's address in the footer that Mailman adds to
43
A. Yes, in Mailman 2.1. The site admin needs to enable
44
personalization by setting the following variables in the mm_cfg.py
47
VERP_PASSWORD_REMINDERS = 1
48
VERP_PERSONALIZED_DELIVERIES = 1
49
VERP_DELIVERY_INTERVAL = 1
50
VERP_CONFIRMATIONS = 1
52
Once this is done, list admins can enable personalization for
53
regular delivery members (digest deliveries can't be
54
personalized currently). A personalized list can include the
55
user's address in the footer.
57
Q. My users hate HTML in their email and for security reasons, I want
58
to strip out all MIME attachments. How can I do this?
60
A. Mailman 2.1 has this feature built-in. See the Content Filtering
61
Options page in the admin interface.
63
Q. What if I get "document contains no data" from the web server, or
64
mail isn't getting delivered, or I see "Premature end of script
65
headers" or "Mailman CGI error!!!"
67
A. The most likely cause of this is that the GID that is compiled into
68
the C wrappers does not match the GID that your Web server invokes
69
CGI scripts with. Note that a similar error could occur if your
70
mail system invokes filter programs under a GID that does not match
71
the one compiled into the C mail wrapper.
73
To fix this you will need to re-configure Mailman using the
74
--with-cgi-gid and --with-mail-gid options. See the INSTALL file
77
These errors are logged to syslog and they do not show up in the
78
Mailman log files. Problems with the CGI wrapper do get reported
79
in the web browser though (unless STEALTH_MODE is enabled), and
80
include the expected GID, so that should help a lot.
82
You may want to have syslog running and configured to log the
83
mail.error log class somewhere; on Solaris systems, the line
85
mail.debug /var/log/syslog
87
causes the messages to go to them in /var/log/syslog, for example.
88
(The distributed syslog.conf forwards the message to the loghost,
89
when present. See the syslog man page for more details.)
91
If your system is set like this, and you get a failure trying to
92
visit the mailman/listinfo web page, and it's due to a UID or GID
93
mismatch, then you should get an entry at the end of
94
/var/log/syslog identifying the expected and received values.
96
If you are not getting any log messages in syslog, or in Mailman's
97
own log files, but messages are still not being delivered, then it
98
is likely that qrunner is not running (qrunner is the process that
99
handles all mail in the system). In Mailman 2.0, qrunner was
100
invoked from cron so make sure your crontab entries for the
101
`mailman' user have been installed. In Mailman 2.1, qrunner is
102
started with the bin/mailmanctl script, which can be invoked
103
manually, or merged with your OS's init scripts.
105
Q. What should I check periodically?
107
A. Many of the scripts have their standard error logged to
108
$prefix/logs/error, and some of the modules write caught errors
109
there, as well, so you should check there at least occasionally to
110
look for bugs in the code and problems in your setup.
112
You may want to periodically check the other log files in the logs/
113
directory, perhaps occasionally rotating them with something like
114
the Linux logrotate script.
116
Q. I can't access the public archives. Why?
118
A. If you are using Apache, you must make sure that FollowSymLinks is
119
enabled for the path to the public archives. Note that the actual
120
archives always reside in the private tree, and only when archives
121
are public, is the symlink followed. See this archive message for
124
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/1998-November/000150.html
126
Q. Still having problems? Running QMail?
128
A. Make sure that you are using "preline" before calling the "mailman"
131
|preline /home/mailman/mail/mailman post listname
133
"preline" adds a Unix-style "From " header which the archiver requires.
134
You can fix the archive mbox files by adding:
136
From somebody Mon Oct 9 12:27:34 MDT 2000
138
before every message and re-running the archive command
139
"bin/arch listname". The archives should now exist. See README.QMAIL
140
for more information.
142
Q. Still having problems? Running on GNU/Linux?
144
A. See the README.LINUX file.
146
Q. I want to get rid of some messages in my archive. How do I do
149
A. David Rocher posts the following recipe:
151
* remove $prefix/archives/private/<listname>
152
* edit $prefix/archives/private/<listname>.mbox/<listname>.mbox [optional]
153
* run $prefix/bin/arch <listname>
155
Q. How secure are the authentication mechanisms used in Mailman's web
158
A. If your Mailman installation run on an SSL-enabled web server
159
(i.e. you access the Mailman web pages with "https://..." URLs),
160
you should be as safe as SSL itself is.
162
However, most Mailman installation run under standard,
163
encryption-unaware servers. There's nothing wrong with that for
164
most applications, but a sufficiently determined cracker *could*
165
get unauthorized access by:
167
* Packet sniffing: The password used to do the initial
168
authentication for any non-public Mailman page is sent as clear
169
text over the net. If you consider this to be a big problem, you
170
really should use an SSL-enabled server.
172
* Stealing a valid cookie: After successful password
173
authentication, Mailman sends a "cookie" back to the user's
174
browser. This cookie will be used for "automatic" authentication
175
when browsing further within the list's protected pages. Mailman
176
employs "session cookies" which are set until you quit your
177
browser or explicitly log out.
179
Gaining access to the user's cookie (e.g. by being able to read
180
the user's browser cookie database, or by means of packet
181
sniffing, or maybe even by some broken browser offering all it's
182
cookies to any and all sites the user accesses), and at the same
183
time being able to fulfill the other criteria for using the
184
cookie could result in unauthorized access.
186
Note that this problem is more easily exploited when users browse
187
the web via proxies -- in that case, the cookie would be valid
188
for any connections made through that proxy, and not just for
189
connections made from the particular machine the user happens to
190
be accessing the proxy from.
192
* Getting access to the user's terminal: This is really just
193
another kind of cookie stealing. The short cookie expiration
194
time is supposed to help defeat this problem. It can be
195
considered the price to pay for the convenience of not having to
196
type the password in every time.
198
Q. I want to backup my lists. What do I need to save?
200
A. See this FAQ wizard entry:
201
http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq04.006.htp
203
Q. How do I rename a list?
205
A. Renaming a list is currently a bit of a pain to do completely
206
correctly, especially if you want to make sure that the old list
207
contacts are automatically forwarded to the new list. This ought
210
The biggest problem you have is how to stop mail and web traffic to
211
your list during the transition, and what to do about any mail
212
undelivered to the old list after the move. I don't think there
213
are any foolproof steps, but here's how you can reduce the risk:
215
- Temporarily disable qrunner. To do this, you need to edit the
216
user `mailman's crontab entry. Execute the following command,
217
commenting out the qrunner line when you're dropped into your
218
editor. Then save the file and quit the editor.
220
% crontab -u mailman -e
222
- Turn off your mail server. This is mostly harmless since remote
223
MTAs will just keep retrying until you turn it back on, and it's
224
not going to be off for very long.
226
- Next turn off your web server if possible. This of course means
227
your entire site will be off-line while you make the switch and
228
this may not be acceptable to you. The next best suggestion is
229
to set up your permanent redirects now for the list you're
230
moving. This means that anybody looking for the list under its
231
old name will be redirected to the new name, but they'll get
232
errors until you've completed the move.
234
Let's say the old name is "oldname" and the new name is
235
"newname". Here are some Apache directives that will do the
238
RedirectMatch permanent /mailman/(.*)/oldname(.*) http://www.dom.ain/mailman/$1/newname$2
239
RedirectMatch permanent /pipermail/oldname(.*) http://www.dom.ain/pipermail/newname$1
241
Add these to your httpd.conf file and restart Apache.
243
- Now cd to the directory where you've installed Mailman. Let's
244
say it's /usr/local/mailman:
246
% cd /usr/local/mailman
248
and cd to the `lists' subdirectory:
252
You should now see the directory `oldname'. Move this to
257
- Now cd to the private archives directory:
259
% cd ../archives/private
261
You will need to move the oldname's .mbox directory, and the
262
.mbox file within that directory. Don't worry about the public
263
archives; the next few steps will take care of them without
264
requiring you to fiddle around in the file system:
266
% mv oldname.mbox newname.mbox
267
% mv newname.mbox/oldname.mbox newname.mbox/newname.mbox
269
- You now need to run the `bin/move_list' script to update some of
270
the internal archiver paths. IMPORTANT: Skip this step if you
271
are using Mailman 2.1!
274
% bin/move_list newname
276
- You should now regenerate the public archives:
280
- You'll likely need to change some of your list's configuration
281
options, especially if you want to accept postings addressed to
282
the old list on the new list. Visit the admin interface for your
285
o Go to the General options
287
o Change the "real_name" option to reflect the new list's name,
290
o Change the subject prefix to reflect the new list's name,
291
e.g. "[Newname] " (yes, that's a trailing space character).
293
o Optionally, update other configuration fields like info,
294
description, or welcome_msg. YMMV.
298
o Go to the Privacy options
300
o Add the old list's address to acceptable_aliases.
301
E.g. "oldname@dom.ain". This way, (after the /etc/aliases
302
changes described below) messages posted to the old list will
303
not be held by the new list for "implicit destination"
308
- Now you want to update your /etc/aliases file to include the
309
aliases for the new list, and forwards for the old list to the
310
new list. Note that these instructions are for Sendmail style
311
alias files, adjust to the specifics of how your MTA is set up.
313
o Find the lines defining the aliases for your old list's name
315
o Copy and paste them just below the originals.
317
o Change all the references of "oldname" to "newname" in the
320
o Now change the targets of the original aliases to forward to
321
the new aliases. When you're done, you will end up with
322
/etc/aliases entries like the following (YMMV):
324
XXX This needs updating for MM2.1!
326
# Forward the oldname list to the newname list
327
oldname: newname@dom.ain
328
oldname-request: newname-request@dom.ain
329
oldname-admin: newname-admin@dom.ain
330
oldname-owner: newname-owner@dom.ain
332
newname: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman post newname"
333
newname-admin: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman mailowner newname"
334
newname-request: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman mailcmd newname"
335
newname-owner: newname-admin
339
- Before you restart everything, you want to make one last check.
340
You're looking for files in the qfiles/ directory that may have
341
been addressed to the old list but weren't delivered before you
342
renamed the list. Do something like the following:
344
% cd /usr/local/mailman/qfiles
347
If you get no hits, skip to the next step, you've got nothing to
350
If you did get hits, then things get complicated. I warn you
351
that the rest of this step is untested. :(
353
For each of the .msg files that were destined for the old list,
354
you need to change the corresponding .db file. Unfortunately
355
there's no easy way to do this. Anyway...
357
Save the following Python code in a file called 'hackdb.py':
359
-------------------------hackdb.py
362
fp = open(sys.argv[1])
365
d['listname'] = sys.argv[2]
366
fp = open(sys.argv[1], 'w')
369
-------------------------
371
And then for each file that matched your grep above, do the
374
% python hackdb.py reallylonghexfilenamematch1.db newname
376
- It's now safe to turn your MTA back on.
378
- Turn your qrunner back on by running
380
% crontab -u mailman -e
382
again and this time uncommenting the qrunner line. Save the file
383
and quit your editor.
385
- Rejoice, you're done. Send $100,000 in shiny new pennies to the
386
Mailman cabal as your downpayment toward making this easier for
387
the next list you have to rename. :)
393
indent-tabs-mode: nil
added
removed
FAQ
