[Mailman-Developers] Using pre-existing passwords along with mailman passwords?

[Jerry Stratton]

I posted this to the users group, and they suggested I post it here; 
I've looked into what might need to be done, and it looks like it 
will be a lot easier for list members than for list administrators; 
since list members have 'usernames' (their e-mail address), but list 
administrators just have their password?

Is there a best place to apply such a patch?

At our University, we use a special username/password (called a 
"UNet" account) for all web-related items. We can match the UNet 
username directly to the user's University e-mail address.

I would like to use this username/password for all list members and 
list owners who have a UNet account, but fall through to the 
mailman-generated password for those who do not. We do not have 
access to the actual password--it is stored only as a Unix hash so we 
can't simply insert it into the mailman password database (and we 
wouldn't want to send it out via e-mail on a monthly basis in any 
case). Has anyone else implemented something like this?

What I'm looking at as a possibility is setting up an Apache 
=2Ehtaccess file so that all of the mailman directories are password 
protected, but allow guest access (Apache has a special module that 
will do this). If a user logs in using their UNet account, map it to 
their e-mail address and bypass mailman's login process. If the user 
logs in as a guest, do not bypass mailman's login process.

Has anyone already done this? If so, are there already any 
instructions somewhere for how to do this? Any foreseeable problems 
with this method?


Jerry
-- 
jerry@sandiego.edu
http://www.sandiego.edu/~jerry/
--
The more restrictions there are, the poorer the people become. The 
greater the government=B9s power, the more chaotic the nation would 
become. The more the ruler imposes laws and prohibitions on his 
people, the more frequently evil deeds would occur.
--The Silence of the Wise: The Sayings of Lao Zi