[Mailman-Developers] FreeBSD 8.2, Python2.7, Exim-4 and MM3

[Barry Warsaw]

Hi Nigel,

On May 30, 2011, at 09:10 AM, Nigel Metheringham wrote:

>So to make this more generic:-
>  - how can an external process detect configured lists?
>    - preferably in a relatively non-active fashion - ie looking at
>      the filesystem
>    - if needed by running something to say if list x exists

I think you could do it either way.  In MM3, while there's no config.pck file,
there still is a directory under lists/ for each mailing list.  This is where
things like template customizations can go, and probably more things
eventually.  One difference is that the directory contains the "fqdn listname"
which is the same as the posting address.  E.g.:

$ bin/mailman info
GNU Mailman 3.0.0a7+ (Where's My Thing?)
Python 2.7.1+ (r271:86832, Apr 11 2011, 18:13:53) 
[GCC 4.5.2]
config file: None
db url: sqlite:////home/barry/projects/mailman/3.0/var/data/mailman.db
REST root url: http://localhost:8001/3.0/
REST credentials: restadmin:restpass
$ bin/mailman lists
1 matching mailing lists found:
test1 at example.com
$ ls var/lists
test1 at example.com/

You could also get this information from the REST API.  Here's an example
using the Python client library, but of course anything that talks HTTP and
can parse JSON will work too.

$ python
Python 2.7.1+ (r271:86832, Apr 11 2011, 18:13:53) 
[GCC 4.5.2] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from mailman.client import Client
>>> mm = Client('http://localhost:8001/3.0', 'restadmin', 'restpass')
>>> for mlist in mm.lists:
...   print mlist.fqdn_listname
... 
test1 at example.com

>  - what addresses does a list provide (ie list-request etc)
>  - or is there a way of getting mailman to list all the addresses
>    that mailman handles (ideally including domain)

It's not wonderful, since it's primarily geared toward generating /etc/aliases
files (or their mta-specific moral equivalents), but it's there.  Of course,
it would be easy to add any specific output format that would help Exim.  This
is the Postfix output:

$ bin/mailman aliases -o -
# AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED BY MAILMAN ON 2011-06-01 13:27:42
#
# This file is generated by Mailman, and is kept in sync with the binary hash
# file.  YOU SHOULD NOT MANUALLY EDIT THIS FILE unless you know what you're
# doing, and can keep the two files properly in sync.  If you screw it up,
# you're on your own.

# Aliases which are visible only in the @example.com domain.

test1 at example.com                lmtp:[127.0.0.1]:8024
test1-bounces at example.com        lmtp:[127.0.0.1]:8024
test1-confirm at example.com        lmtp:[127.0.0.1]:8024
test1-join at example.com           lmtp:[127.0.0.1]:8024
test1-leave at example.com          lmtp:[127.0.0.1]:8024
test1-owner at example.com          lmtp:[127.0.0.1]:8024
test1-request at example.com        lmtp:[127.0.0.1]:8024
test1-subscribe at example.com      lmtp:[127.0.0.1]:8024
test1-unsubscribe at example.com    lmtp:[127.0.0.1]:8024

There's currently no equivalent in the REST API, although it would be trivial
to add.

>> Second, the preferred way to get messages into MM3 is via LMTP, so ideally,
>> there'd be some configuration to get Exim to connect to MM3's LMTP server.
>
>That should be pretty easy.

Awesome.

>> It would be great to have better Exim (and Sendmail, qmail, or any other
>> MTA) support in MM3.  Let us know if you're willing and able to help!
>
>Can't do a great deal on this, but willing to heckle, umm, give
>some advice from the sidelines.
>The exim.org machine is moving to a more modern platform later in
>the year so we may be in a position to realistically look at hosting
>a MM3 install then.

That would be great.  I think we're very soon going to be ready to bring up a
(GUI-less) test instance and to let brave souls start using it for real.  I've
been thinking about python.org or one of my own domains, none of which are
entirely ideal.  But if you or anyone else has a spare machine that we could
use, let's talk!

Cheers,
-Barry
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