[Mailman-Developers] mailman installation error

[Ron Jarrell]

At 10:35 AM 11/4/00 -0500, Barry A. Warsaw wrote:

>>>>>> "mt" == mike tran <mtran@bmedesign.com> writes:
>
>    mt> After I did ./configure --with-cgi-gid=nobody
>    mt> --with-mail-gid=mailman and make install.  Then I ran
>    mt> check_perms.  It keep telling me that it cannot find the
>    mt> module "paths" in line 19 of check_perms.  Any suggestions is
>    mt> appricated.  I am using RH 6.2 and the latest Apache with
>    mt> python 1.5.2
>
>Look in /home/mailman/bin.  If there's no paths.py file in there, your
>installation failed somehow.

Actually, this probably is a doc problem.  I've dealt with this several times on
the users list, and in all but one case (where their python was hosed) it was 
people not clearly following the directions.  They're supposed to install,
then run check_perms out of ~mailman/bin.  Where there's a paths.py(c).

However, what confuses a lot of people who only skim, is that in
${srcdir}/mailman/bin there's a check_perms.  (The distribution copy).
Which, of course, doesn't have a paths.py installed yet, and thus, doesn't
work, but looks like it ought to, particularly to a complete newcomer who
doesn't understand how things go together.  (Heck, it took *me* a couple of
days to figure out whatinhell they were doing wrong.)

There probably needs to be a mention in the install file to *not* run check_perms
until *after* you install, and to run it from the *installed* base.  Or rename the
install copy to check_perms.dist, and install it as check_perms...