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Title: Mailman Frequently Asked Questions
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See also the <a href="http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py">Mailman
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FAQ Wizard</a> for more information.
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<h3>Mailman Frequently Asked Questions</h3>
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<b> Q. How do you spell this program?
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</b><br> A. You spell it "Mailman", with a leading capital "M" and a lowercase
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second "m". It is incorrect to spell it "MailMan" (i.e. you should
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<p> <b> Q. I'm getting really terrible performance for outgoing messages. It
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seems that if the MTA has trouble resolving DNS for any recipients,
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qrunner just gets really slow clearing the queue. Any ideas?
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</b><br> A. What's likely happening is that your MTA is doing DNS resolution on
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recipients for messages delivered locally (i.e. from Mailman to
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your MTA via SMTPDirect.py). This is a Bad Thing. You need to
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turn off synchronous DNS resolution for messages originating from
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<p> In Exim, the value to edit is receiver_verify_hosts. See
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README.EXIM for details. Other MTAs have (of course) different
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parameters and defaults that control this. First check the README
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file for your MTA and then consult your MTA's own documentation.
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<p> <b> Q. My list members are complaining about Mailman's List-* headers!
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What can I do about this?
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</b><br> A. These headers are described in RFC 2369 and are added by Mailman
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for the long-term benefit of end-users. While discouraged, the
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list admin can disable these via the General Options page. See
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also README.USERAGENT for more information.
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<p> <b> Q. Can I put the user's address in the footer that Mailman adds to
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</b><br> A. Yes, in Mailman 2.1. The site admin needs to enable
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personalization by setting the following variables in the mm_cfg.py
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<p> VERP_PASSWORD_REMINDERS = 1
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VERP_PERSONALIZED_DELIVERIES = 1
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VERP_DELIVERY_INTERVAL = 1
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VERP_CONFIRMATIONS = 1
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<p> Once this is done, list admins can enable personalization for
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regular delivery members (digest deliveries can't be
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personalized currently). A personalized list can include the
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user's address in the footer.
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<p> <b> Q. My users hate HTML in their email and for security reasons, I want
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to strip out all MIME attachments. How can I do this?
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</b><br> A. Mailman 2.1 has this feature built-in. See the Content Filtering
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Options page in the admin interface.
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<p> <b> Q. What if I get "document contains no data" from the web server, or
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mail isn't getting delivered, or I see "Premature end of script
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headers" or "Mailman CGI error!!!"
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</b><br> A. The most likely cause of this is that the GID that is compiled into
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the C wrappers does not match the GID that your Web server invokes
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CGI scripts with. Note that a similar error could occur if your
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mail system invokes filter programs under a GID that does not match
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the one compiled into the C mail wrapper.
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<p> To fix this you will need to re-configure Mailman using the
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--with-cgi-gid and --with-mail-gid options. See the INSTALL file
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<p> These errors are logged to syslog and they do not show up in the
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Mailman log files. Problems with the CGI wrapper do get reported
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in the web browser though (unless STEALTH_MODE is enabled), and
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include the expected GID, so that should help a lot.
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<p> You may want to have syslog running and configured to log the
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mail.error log class somewhere; on Solaris systems, the line
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<p> mail.debug /var/log/syslog
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<p> causes the messages to go to them in /var/log/syslog, for example.
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(The distributed syslog.conf forwards the message to the loghost,
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when present. See the syslog man page for more details.)
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<p> If your system is set like this, and you get a failure trying to
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visit the mailman/listinfo web page, and it's due to a UID or GID
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mismatch, then you should get an entry at the end of
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/var/log/syslog identifying the expected and received values.
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<p> If you are not getting any log messages in syslog, or in Mailman's
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own log files, but messages are still not being delivered, then it
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is likely that qrunner is not running (qrunner is the process that
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handles all mail in the system). In Mailman 2.0, qrunner was
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invoked from cron so make sure your crontab entries for the
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`mailman' user have been installed. In Mailman 2.1, qrunner is
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started with the bin/mailmanctl script, which can be invoked
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manually, or merged with your OS's init scripts.
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<p> <b> Q. What should I check periodically?
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</b><br> A. Many of the scripts have their standard error logged to
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$prefix/logs/error, and some of the modules write caught errors
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there, as well, so you should check there at least occasionally to
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look for bugs in the code and problems in your setup.
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<p> You may want to periodically check the other log files in the logs/
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directory, perhaps occasionally rotating them with something like
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the Linux logrotate script.
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<p> <b> Q. I can't access the public archives. Why?
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</b><br> A. If you are using Apache, you must make sure that FollowSymLinks is
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enabled for the path to the public archives. Note that the actual
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archives always reside in the private tree, and only when archives
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are public, is the symlink followed. See this archive message for
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<p> <a href="http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/1998-November/000150.html">http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/1998-November/000150.html</a>
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<p> <b> Q. Still having problems? Running QMail?
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</b><br> A. Make sure that you are using "preline" before calling the "mailman"
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<p> |preline /home/mailman/mail/mailman post listname
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<p> "preline" adds a Unix-style "From " header which the archiver requires.
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You can fix the archive mbox files by adding:
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<p> From somebody Mon Oct 9 12:27:34 MDT 2000
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<p> before every message and re-running the archive command
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"bin/arch listname". The archives should now exist. See README.QMAIL
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for more information.
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<p> <b> Q. Still having problems? Running on GNU/Linux?
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</b><br> A. See the README.LINUX file.
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<p> <b> Q. I want to get rid of some messages in my archive. How do I do
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</b><br> A. David Rocher posts the following recipe:
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remove $prefix/archives/private/<em>listname</em>
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edit $prefix/archives/private/<em>listname</em>.mbox/<em>listname</em>.mbox [optional]
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run $prefix/bin/arch <em>listname</em>
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<p> <b> Q. How secure are the authentication mechanisms used in Mailman's web
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</b><br> A. If your Mailman installation run on an SSL-enabled web server
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(i.e. you access the Mailman web pages with "https://..." URLs),
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you should be as safe as SSL itself is.
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<p> However, most Mailman installation run under standard,
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encryption-unaware servers. There's nothing wrong with that for
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most applications, but a sufficiently determined cracker *could*
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get unauthorized access by:
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Packet sniffing: The password used to do the initial
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authentication for any non-public Mailman page is sent as clear
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text over the net. If you consider this to be a big problem, you
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really should use an SSL-enabled server.
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Stealing a valid cookie: After successful password
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authentication, Mailman sends a "cookie" back to the user's
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browser. This cookie will be used for "automatic" authentication
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when browsing further within the list's protected pages. Mailman
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employs "session cookies" which are set until you quit your
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browser or explicitly log out.
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<p> Gaining access to the user's cookie (e.g. by being able to read
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the user's browser cookie database, or by means of packet
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sniffing, or maybe even by some broken browser offering all it's
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cookies to any and all sites the user accesses), and at the same
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time being able to fulfill the other criteria for using the
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cookie could result in unauthorized access.
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<p> Note that this problem is more easily exploited when users browse
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the web via proxies -- in that case, the cookie would be valid
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for any connections made through that proxy, and not just for
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connections made from the particular machine the user happens to
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be accessing the proxy from.
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Getting access to the user's terminal: This is really just
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another kind of cookie stealing. The short cookie expiration
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time is supposed to help defeat this problem. It can be
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considered the price to pay for the convenience of not having to
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type the password in every time.
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<p> <b> Q. I want to backup my lists. What do I need to save?
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</b><br> A. See this FAQ wizard entry:
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<a href="http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq04.006.htp">http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq04.006.htp</a>
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<p> <b> Q. How do I rename a list?
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</b><br> A. Renaming a list is currently a bit of a pain to do completely
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correctly, especially if you want to make sure that the old list
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contacts are automatically forwarded to the new list. This ought
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<p> The biggest problem you have is how to stop mail and web traffic to
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your list during the transition, and what to do about any mail
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undelivered to the old list after the move. I don't think there
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are any foolproof steps, but here's how you can reduce the risk:
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<p> - Temporarily disable qrunner. To do this, you need to edit the
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user `mailman's crontab entry. Execute the following command,
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commenting out the qrunner line when you're dropped into your
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editor. Then save the file and quit the editor.
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<p> % crontab -u mailman -e
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<p> - Turn off your mail server. This is mostly harmless since remote
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MTAs will just keep retrying until you turn it back on, and it's
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not going to be off for very long.
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<p> - Next turn off your web server if possible. This of course means
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your entire site will be off-line while you make the switch and
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this may not be acceptable to you. The next best suggestion is
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to set up your permanent redirects now for the list you're
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moving. This means that anybody looking for the list under its
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old name will be redirected to the new name, but they'll get
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errors until you've completed the move.
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<p> Let's say the old name is "oldname" and the new name is
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"newname". Here are some Apache directives that will do the
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<p> RedirectMatch permanent /mailman/(.*)/oldname(.*) <a href="http://www.dom.ain/mailman/$1/newname$2">http://www.dom.ain/mailman/$1/newname$2</a>
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RedirectMatch permanent /pipermail/oldname(.*) <a href="http://www.dom.ain/pipermail/newname$1">http://www.dom.ain/pipermail/newname$1</a>
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<p> Add these to your httpd.conf file and restart Apache.
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<p> - Now cd to the directory where you've installed Mailman. Let's
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say it's /usr/local/mailman:
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<p> % cd /usr/local/mailman
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<p> and cd to the `lists' subdirectory:
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<p> You should now see the directory `oldname'. Move this to
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<p> % mv oldname newname
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<p> - Now cd to the private archives directory:
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<p> % cd ../archives/private
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<p> You will need to move the oldname's .mbox directory, and the
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.mbox file within that directory. Don't worry about the public
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archives; the next few steps will take care of them without
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requiring you to fiddle around in the file system:
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<p> % mv oldname.mbox newname.mbox
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% mv newname.mbox/oldname.mbox newname.mbox/newname.mbox
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<p> - You now need to run the `bin/move_list' script to update some of
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the internal archiver paths. IMPORTANT: Skip this step if you
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are using Mailman 2.1!
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% bin/move_list newname
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<p> - You should now regenerate the public archives:
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<p> % bin/arch newname
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<p> - You'll likely need to change some of your list's configuration
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options, especially if you want to accept postings addressed to
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the old list on the new list. Visit the admin interface for your
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<p> o Go to the General options
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<p> o Change the "real_name" option to reflect the new list's name,
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<p> o Change the subject prefix to reflect the new list's name,
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e.g. "[Newname] " (yes, that's a trailing space character).
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<p> o Optionally, update other configuration fields like info,
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description, or welcome_msg. YMMV.
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<p> o Save your changes
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<p> o Go to the Privacy options
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<p> o Add the old list's address to acceptable_aliases.
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E.g. "oldname@dom.ain". This way, (after the /etc/aliases
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changes described below) messages posted to the old list will
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not be held by the new list for "implicit destination"
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<p> o Save your changes
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<p> - Now you want to update your /etc/aliases file to include the
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aliases for the new list, and forwards for the old list to the
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new list. Note that these instructions are for Sendmail style
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alias files, adjust to the specifics of how your MTA is set up.
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<p> o Find the lines defining the aliases for your old list's name
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<p> o Copy and paste them just below the originals.
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<p> o Change all the references of "oldname" to "newname" in the
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<p> o Now change the targets of the original aliases to forward to
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the new aliases. When you're done, you will end up with
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/etc/aliases entries like the following (YMMV):
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<p> XXX This needs updating for MM2.1!
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<p> # Forward the oldname list to the newname list
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oldname: newname@dom.ain
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oldname-request: newname-request@dom.ain
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oldname-admin: newname-admin@dom.ain
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oldname-owner: newname-owner@dom.ain
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<p> newname: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman post newname"
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newname-admin: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman mailowner newname"
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newname-request: "|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman mailcmd newname"
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newname-owner: newname-admin
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<p> - Before you restart everything, you want to make one last check.
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You're looking for files in the qfiles/ directory that may have
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been addressed to the old list but weren't delivered before you
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renamed the list. Do something like the following:
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<p> % cd /usr/local/mailman/qfiles
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<p> If you get no hits, skip to the next step, you've got nothing to
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<p> If you did get hits, then things get complicated. I warn you
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that the rest of this step is untested. :(
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<p> For each of the .msg files that were destined for the old list,
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you need to change the corresponding .db file. Unfortunately
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there's no easy way to do this. Anyway...
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<p> Save the following Python code in a file called 'hackdb.py':
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<p> -------------------------hackdb.py
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fp = open(sys.argv[1])
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d['listname'] = sys.argv[2]
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fp = open(sys.argv[1], 'w')
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-------------------------
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<p> And then for each file that matched your grep above, do the
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<p> % python hackdb.py reallylonghexfilenamematch1.db newname
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<p> - It's now safe to turn your MTA back on.
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<p> - Turn your qrunner back on by running
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<p> % crontab -u mailman -e
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<p> again and this time uncommenting the qrunner line. Save the file
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and quit your editor.
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<p> - Rejoice, you're done. Send $100,000 in shiny new pennies to the
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Mailman cabal as your downpayment toward making this easier for
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the next list you have to rename. :)
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