From bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US  Sat Aug  1 01:04:44 1998
From: bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US (Barry A. Warsaw)
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 19:04:44 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] problem with "Edit Options"
References: <19980731140133.L20220@frenzy.com>
Message-ID: <13762.19852.454537.571335@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>

>>>>> "WB" == William Bradford <mrbill at frenzy.com> writes:

    WB> Tried to do the "Edit Options" section, and edit my personal
    WB> user settings on a test list, and I got this output:

    WB> (http://area51.mrbill.net/mailman/subscribe/test)

    WB> We're sorry, we hit a bug!  If you would like to help us
    WB> identify the problem, please email a copy of this page to the
    WB> webmaster for this site with a description of what
    WB> happened. Thanks!  Traceback:

Bill,

I was able to reproduce this problem on a test list.  Funny, I'm not
sure how this ever worked before!   Here's a patch...

-Barry

-------------------- snip snip --------------------
Index: subscribe.py
===================================================================
RCS file: /projects/cvsroot/mailman/Mailman/Cgi/subscribe.py,v
retrieving revision 1.5
retrieving revision 1.6
diff -c -r1.5 -r1.6
*** subscribe.py	1998/07/13 21:27:10	1.5
--- subscribe.py	1998/07/31 23:03:13	1.6
***************
*** 58,69 ****
      error = 0
      results = ''
  
!     def call_script(which, pathinfo):
          "A little bit of a hack to call one of the scripts..."
          os.environ['PATH_INFO'] = string.join(pathinfo, '/')
-         file = os.path.join(mm_cfg.SCRIPTS_DIR, which)
          list.Unlock()
!         execfile(file)
          sys.exit(0)
  
      #######
--- 58,70 ----
      error = 0
      results = ''
  
!     def call_script(which, pathinfo, list):
          "A little bit of a hack to call one of the scripts..."
          os.environ['PATH_INFO'] = string.join(pathinfo, '/')
          list.Unlock()
!         pkg = __import__('Mailman.Cgi', globals(), locals(), [which])
!         mod = getattr(pkg, which)
!         mod.main()
          sys.exit(0)
  
      #######
***************
*** 92,98 ****
              print doc.Format()
              list.Unlock()
              sys.exit(0)
!         call_script('options', [list._internal_name, member])
      if not form.has_key("email"):
          error = 1
          results = results + "You must supply a valid email address.<br>"
--- 93,99 ----
              print doc.Format()
              list.Unlock()
              sys.exit(0)
!         call_script('options', [list._internal_name, member], list)
      if not form.has_key("email"):
          error = 1
          results = results + "You must supply a valid email address.<br>"



From bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US  Sat Aug  1 01:14:28 1998
From: bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US (Barry A. Warsaw)
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 19:14:28 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Multiple copies of messages?
References: <19980729104449.A29021@frenzy.com>
	<13760.49233.219618.937228@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>
	<19980731004732.L378@frenzy.com>
Message-ID: <13762.20436.753928.315796@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>

>>>>> "WB" == William Bradford <mrbill at frenzy.com> writes:

    WB> My users are getting list posts more than once (twice, three
    WB> times, sometimes four or five copies of the same messages).

Dang, I suspect there are still problems with the SMTP support.  I'm
not up on that part of the code so for now, I'll leave it to Ken or
John to look in to.

    WB> Never ran into a multiple-subscribe-ack problem (I added all
    WB> my users manually, from another list software), but I also
    WB> found that if I tried to add more than 25 users at a time or
    WB> so I'd get error occurances with messages on the web page like
    WB> "Operation would block", etc.  That, however, may be a DEC
    WB> UNIX limit problem and not a MailMan problem.

Hmm.

    WB> DU 4.0D / Sendmail 8.9.1 / Python 1.5.1 / MailMan 1.0b5,
    WB> compiled with GCC (egcs 1.0.3a).

    WB> Currently, until I can get the multiple-posts problem fixed (I
    WB> myself was getting the posts twice) I've got all my users back
    WB> on Procmail/Smartlist.  8-(

:-(

If nothing happens on this front over the weekend, I'll dig in.

-Barry



From bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US  Sat Aug  1 01:31:24 1998
From: bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US (Barry A. Warsaw)
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 19:31:24 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Reposting Form Data
Message-ID: <13762.21452.924625.782129@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>

Maybe someone out there with more HTTP experience than me can answer
this question.  If I have a CGI script that issues a redirect using
the `Location:' header, I can get the Web browser to go to the
relocated page with no problem.  It even still shows the original URL
in browser.  Cool so far.

However, if what I'm doing is posting some form data, the browser gets
redirected, but the form data doesn't get reposted to the new URL.
Verified under NS4/Unix and IE3.  This is a real pain for something
I'm trying to add to Mailman.

I'm sure there's some haughty security justification for the
non-reposting of form data, so the natural question is: can I get
around this?  :-)

Thanks,
-Barry



From fleck at informatik.uni-bonn.de  Sat Aug  1 01:59:28 1998
From: fleck at informatik.uni-bonn.de (Markus Fleck)
Date: Sat, 01 Aug 1998 01:59:28 +0200
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Reposting Form Data
References: <13762.21452.924625.782129@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>
Message-ID: <35C25A60.6361@informatik.uni-bonn.de>

Barry A. Warsaw wrote:
> [Redirecting POST]
> I'm sure there's some haughty security justification for the
> non-reposting of form data, so the natural question is: can I get
> around this?  :-)

I don't think so. You either have to post to the "other" URL
yourself in the CGI script (eek), or try to attach your parameters,
URL-encoded, to the URL (as a GET request). The latter aproach looks
ugly in browsers (and might reveal passwords in clear text), and the
former might be a security problem (if access to the "other" CGI
script is restricted).

OTOH, if you're on the same server, you could just exec (or "import")
the "other" CGI script directly from the local file system.

I don't think that there is a portable way to redirect POSTs.

Yours,
Markus.



From mrbill at frenzy.com  Sat Aug  1 02:53:57 1998
From: mrbill at frenzy.com (William Bradford)
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 19:53:57 -0500
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Multiple copies of messages?
In-Reply-To: <13762.20436.753928.315796@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>; from Barry A. Warsaw on Fri, Jul 31, 1998 at 07:14:28PM -0400
References: <19980729104449.A29021@frenzy.com> <13760.49233.219618.937228@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us> <19980731004732.L378@frenzy.com> <13762.20436.753928.315796@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>
Message-ID: <19980731195357.C3858@frenzy.com>

On Fri, Jul 31, 1998 at 07:14:28PM -0400, Barry A. Warsaw wrote:
>     WB> Never ran into a multiple-subscribe-ack problem (I added all
>     WB> my users manually, from another list software), but I also
>     WB> found that if I tried to add more than 25 users at a time or
>     WB> so I'd get error occurances with messages on the web page like
>     WB> "Operation would block", etc.  That, however, may be a DEC
>     WB> UNIX limit problem and not a MailMan problem.
> Hmm.

Whack that.  I changed "Max number of outgoing connections" to 1 today,
and it eliminated the multiple-copies-of-posts, but I'm seeing the
double-ack problem now.  My other problem ("Edit Options" was broke) has
already been fixed. 8-)

> :-(

I've been testing another list all day and its looking better.
Just need to patch and recompile and reinstall.

BTW, did anyboyd else notice that all the python scripts are
headed with "#! /usr/local/env python" instead of "#! <path to
installed python executable>" ?  I had to hand-edit all the stuff
in bin/ and scripts/ to get it to work.

So far, so good.  getting there gradually.

Bill

-- 
Bill Bradford * mrbill at frenzy.com
-------------------------------------------
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler



From bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US  Sat Aug  1 18:01:34 1998
From: bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US (Barry A. Warsaw)
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 12:01:34 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Multiple copies of messages?
References: <19980729104449.A29021@frenzy.com>
	<13760.49233.219618.937228@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>
	<19980731004732.L378@frenzy.com>
	<13762.20436.753928.315796@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>
	<19980731195357.C3858@frenzy.com>
Message-ID: <13763.15326.622187.447644@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>

>>>>> "WB" == William Bradford <mrbill at frenzy.com> writes:

    WB> BTW, did anyboyd else notice that all the python scripts are
    WB> headed with "#! /usr/local/env python" instead of "#! <path to
    WB> installed python executable>" ?  I had to hand-edit all the
    WB> stuff in bin/ and scripts/ to get it to work.

Really?  That shouldn't be necessary.  The idea is that anything
that's exec'd by a wrapper script (CGI or mail) will have the full
path hardcoded into the wrapper.  For stuff you're going to run from a 
command shell, you want the python executable in your $PATH, then the
"standard" Python convention #! line should do the trick.

Is something else going on?  I'd rather not have to change this.
-Barry



From julian7 at kva.hu  Mon Aug  3 16:30:29 1998
From: julian7 at kva.hu (Nagy Balazs)
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 16:30:29 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] roxen www server, qmail mail server
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980803162431.29675O-100000@krondor.kva.hu>

Hiyas,

Iam using Roxen instead of Apache, and it would be nice if you change the
cgi-bins' name to have the .cgi or .py extension (ie admin -> admin.cgi),
because Roxen's cgi identification is made by its extension.

My another favourite is qmail, and I had make a patch for qmail, because
that server doesn't put Date:, To:, Cc: and Message-ID: fields to new
messages unless the /var/qmail/bin/qmail-inject is called.
--
       Nagy Balazs <julian7 at kva.hu> --- Linux Supporting Center, Gyor
My email lists: --- Hungarian Linux list FAQ (mlf.linux.rulez.org/cgi-bin/fom)
GIMP POSTMAN RPG-L IKSZ         PGP263i key: A8B492EE1F5527C8 86649C4241A4BDB8




From julian7 at kva.hu  Mon Aug  3 16:32:09 1998
From: julian7 at kva.hu (Nagy Balazs)
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 16:32:09 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] It's cool: Mailman-Users post acknowlegement (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980803163149.29675P-100000@krondor.kva.hu>

Hmm, another bug.

--
       Nagy Balazs <julian7 at kva.hu> --- Linux Supporting Center, Gyor
My email lists: --- Hungarian Linux list FAQ (mlf.linux.rulez.org/cgi-bin/fom)
GIMP POSTMAN RPG-L IKSZ         PGP263i key: A8B492EE1F5527C8 86649C4241A4BDB8

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 10:25:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: mailman-users-admin at python.org
To: julian7 at kva.hu
Subject: Mailman-Users post acknowlegement


Your message entitled:

	oxen www server, qmail mail server

was successfully received by the Mailman-Users mailing list.

List info page: http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users






From bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US  Mon Aug  3 16:59:01 1998
From: bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US (Barry A. Warsaw)
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 10:59:01 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] roxen www server, qmail mail server
References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980803162431.29675O-100000@krondor.kva.hu>
Message-ID: <13765.53301.626326.83999@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>

>>>>> "NB" == Nagy Balazs <julian7 at kva.hu> writes:

    NB> Iam using Roxen instead of Apache, and it would be nice if you
    NB> change the cgi-bins' name to have the .cgi or .py extension
    NB> (ie admin -> admin.cgi), because Roxen's cgi identification is
    NB> made by its extension.

I can probably add a simple option to the Makefile/configure to
include an extension on the cgi-bin executables (they're binaries so
.py isn't appropriate).

-Barry



From gstein at lyra.org  Mon Aug  3 18:17:16 1998
From: gstein at lyra.org (Greg Stein)
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 1998 09:17:16 -0700
Subject: [Mailman-Users] roxen www server, qmail mail server
References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980803162431.29675O-100000@krondor.kva.hu> <13765.53301.626326.83999@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>
Message-ID: <35C5E28C.6D031900@lyra.org>

Barry A. Warsaw wrote:
> 
> >>>>> "NB" == Nagy Balazs <julian7 at kva.hu> writes:
> 
>     NB> Iam using Roxen instead of Apache, and it would be nice if you
>     NB> change the cgi-bins' name to have the .cgi or .py extension
>     NB> (ie admin -> admin.cgi), because Roxen's cgi identification is
>     NB> made by its extension.
> 
> I can probably add a simple option to the Makefile/configure to
> include an extension on the cgi-bin executables (they're binaries so
> .py isn't appropriate).
> 
> -Barry

I'd recommend fewer options. There must be a way in Roxen to specify a
directory as being executable...

-g

--
Greg Stein (gstein at lyra.org)                 execfile("disclaimer.py")



From bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US  Mon Aug  3 19:25:59 1998
From: bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US (Barry A. Warsaw)
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 13:25:59 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] roxen www server, qmail mail server
References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980803162431.29675O-100000@krondor.kva.hu>
	<13765.53301.626326.83999@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>
	<35C5E28C.6D031900@lyra.org>
Message-ID: <13765.62119.110305.484316@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>

>>>>> "GS" == Greg Stein <gstein at lyra.org> writes:

    GS> I'd recommend fewer options. There must be a way in Roxen to
    GS> specify a directory as being executable...

I agree (although it was trivial to implement).

-Barry



From cklempay at acm.jhu.edu  Mon Aug  3 19:37:30 1998
From: cklempay at acm.jhu.edu (Corbett J. Klempay)
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 13:37:30 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Odd b5 behavior
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980803133224.14227C-100000@chimera.acm.jhu.edu>

I've been having this problem for a few days, and I am just trying to find
out if anyone else here is experiencing a similar phenomenon (so that
maybe I'll get lucky and talk to you and figure out what the story is):

- 1.0b5 + sendmail 8.9.1
- RH Linux 5.1 (if you need more info, it's also http://www2.acm.jhu.edu
-- there's lots of stuff there)

There was some weirdness with permissions being set wrong with Linux + b5,
but Barry issued a patch in about 2 seconds flat that cleared that one up.
The current problem is that I have several lists set up, but if you send
mail to them (like test at acm.jhu.edu), your mail is swallowed into a
bottomless pit...it never sees the light of day again.  If you look at
/var/log/maillog, it claims the mail has been sent.  Users have that they
did get their monthly password reminder from Mailman itself, however.

I don't think this is really something misconfigured with sendmail on my
end; this same setup was chugging right along with 1.0b4 until I tried to
switch.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Corbett J. Klempay			         Quote of the Week:
http://www2.acm.jhu.edu/~cklempay        "Money is the root of all good."

PGP Fingerprint: 7DA2 DB6E 7F5E 8973 A8E7  347B 2429 7728 76C2 BEA1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------




From klm at cnri.reston.va.us  Mon Aug  3 20:00:11 1998
From: klm at cnri.reston.va.us (Ken Manheimer)
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 14:00:11 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Re: [Mailman-Developers] Odd b5 behavior
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980803133224.14227C-100000@chimera.acm.jhu.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.96.980803134928.1139Q-100000@glyph.cnri.reston.va.us>

Corbett, i've been hoping to find a minute to look into this behavior - 
i may be able to get to it later today.  In the meanwhile, please check
for any relevant entries in your ~mailman/logs/errors log file, and if
there are any, send copies to me.

And let me see if i understand correctly - you say that /var/log/maillog
indicates that your sendmail sent the messages to the users, but the
users never see them?  This would suggest that the messages *really*
foul up the receiving side - and that brings one possibilty to mind. 

There is a known bug in some recent versions of sendmail (8.8.x for some
x, and 8.9.0) such that the sendmail will core dump when attempting to
deliver mailman's (or any 8-bit encoded) Mime-format digests in certain
(somewhat uncommon) circumstances.  The question then is, were the
messages that never appeared in the users mailbox Mime digests?  And if
not, could you construct a repeatable test that at least reduces the
likelihood that the problem is on the receiving ends?  For that matter,
might you happen to be running sendmail 8.8.x or 8.9.0?  Your sendmail
may be getting so far as negotiating the delivery and then failing
partway through...

With the info available currently it's hard to know what of mailman to
investigate on this end, since mailman evidently got the messages to
your MTA.

Ken Manheimer		  klm at python.org	    703 620-8990 x268
	    (orporation for National Research |nitiatives

	# If you appreciate Python, consider joining the PSA! #
		  # <http://www.python.org/psa/>. #






From janne at avocado.pc.helsinki.fi  Mon Aug  3 20:09:12 1998
From: janne at avocado.pc.helsinki.fi (Janne Sinkkonen)
Date: 03 Aug 1998 21:09:12 +0300
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Re: [Mailman-Developers] Odd b5 behavior
In-Reply-To: Ken Manheimer's message of "Mon, 3 Aug 1998 14:00:11 -0400 (EDT)"
References: <Pine.GSO.3.96.980803134928.1139Q-100000@glyph.cnri.reston.va.us>
Message-ID: <oa7m0qdjjr.fsf@avocado.pc.helsinki.fi>

Ken Manheimer <klm at cnri.reston.va.us> writes:

> There is a known bug in some recent versions of sendmail (8.8.x for some
> x, and 8.9.0) such that the sendmail will core dump when attempting to
> deliver mailman's (or any 8-bit encoded) Mime-format digests in certain
> (somewhat uncommon) circumstances.  The question then is, were the
> messages that never appeared in the users mailbox Mime digests?  And if
> not, could you construct a repeatable test that at least reduces the
> likelihood that the problem is on the receiving ends?  For that matter,
> might you happen to be running sendmail 8.8.x or 8.9.0?  Your sendmail
> may be getting so far as negotiating the delivery and then failing
> partway through...

He should check his mail spool. If sendmail dies, it leaves the
undelivered message to the spool, which then starts to gradually grow.

When I had a broken sendmail, most of the messages still went through.

-- 
Janne



From cklempay at acm.jhu.edu  Mon Aug  3 20:10:53 1998
From: cklempay at acm.jhu.edu (Corbett J. Klempay)
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 14:10:53 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Re: [Mailman-Developers] Odd b5 behavior
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.96.980803134928.1139Q-100000@glyph.cnri.reston.va.us>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980803140540.15112A-100000@chimera.acm.jhu.edu>

Ken & company:

More info...to correct myself earlier on the sendmail logs (and to be
precise), I sent a test message (no MIME, just a 1 sentence text message)
to one of our small lists (it's the list shown at
http://www2.acm.jhu.edu/mailman/listinfo/tm).  

Sending out that message generated the below entries in /var/log/maillog:

Aug  3 14:04:36 chimera sendmail[15085]: OAA15085:
from=<cklempay at chimera.acm.jhu.edu>, size=657, class=0, pri=30657, nrcpts=1,
msgid=<Pine.LNX.3.96.98080314042
5.15083A-100000 at chimera.acm.jhu.edu>, proto=SMTP, relay=cklempay at localhost
Aug  3 14:04:36 chimera sendmail[15086]: OAA15086: clone OAA15085,
owner=tm-admin
Aug  3 14:04:37 chimera sendmail[15086]: OAA15086:
to=|"/home/mailman/mail/wrapper post tm", delay=00:00:01, xdelay=00:00:01, 
mailer=prog, stat=Sent           

As for ~mailman/logs/errors...there is no such file in that directory (so
no recorded errors, I guess). 

I'm running sendmail 8.9.1.  All of the previous messages I tried were
simple text messages (with whole bodies of things like "Holler if ya hear
me").

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Corbett J. Klempay			         Quote of the Week:
http://www2.acm.jhu.edu/~cklempay        "Money is the root of all good."

PGP Fingerprint: 7DA2 DB6E 7F5E 8973 A8E7  347B 2429 7728 76C2 BEA1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------





From janne at avocado.pc.helsinki.fi  Mon Aug  3 20:38:44 1998
From: janne at avocado.pc.helsinki.fi (Janne Sinkkonen)
Date: 03 Aug 1998 21:38:44 +0300
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Re: [Mailman-Developers] Odd b5 behavior
In-Reply-To: "Corbett J. Klempay"'s message of "Mon, 3 Aug 1998 14:12:31 -0400 (EDT)"
References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980803141122.15125A-100000@chimera.acm.jhu.edu>
Message-ID: <oa4svtewqz.fsf@avocado.pc.helsinki.fi>

"Corbett J. Klempay" <cklempay at acm.jhu.edu> writes:

> How do I check?  Is this what I see when I do mailq?  If that's it, it's
> empty.

Ok.

> > When I had a broken sendmail, most of the messages still went through.
> 
> I don't know that my sendmail is really broken..it works with b4, and all
> of our non-mailman mail is running smoothly.

At least the MIME bug is not your problem, since it doesn't exist in
8.9.1. (BTW, practically all of our non-mailman mail ran smoothly as
well, so that's not an indicator of anything.)

To see whether the mail really goes to the MTA, change the logging
level of sendmail high enough (if it isn't). That's just the 'O' thing
in sendmail.cf - it is easy to edit manually.

-- 
Janne



From klm at cnri.reston.va.us  Thu Aug  6 01:09:59 1998
From: klm at cnri.reston.va.us (Ken Manheimer)
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 19:09:59 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Re: [Mailman-Developers] Odd b5 behavior
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980803133224.14227C-100000@chimera.acm.jhu.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.96.980805184029.1139B-100000@glyph.cnri.reston.va.us>

I've identified the reason for the problem corbett was having, and have
a workaround.

The problem appears to be another linux-specific item, having to do with
the apparent fact that effective gid's are not inherited by forked
processes. I'd be curious to get the scoop on this from any linux gurus
out there.

Corbett was seeing mail submissions completely disappearing - making it
to the maillist, but never showing up, without any logged error
messages.  The failure was happening when the new delivery mechanism was
attempting to place the messages on the outgoing queue.  The data
directory was writable by mailman, and the mail wrapper executable forks
and execs the maillist script with the mailman effective group id. 
However, the delivery mechanism runs in a subsequently forked process of
the maillist script - and apparently, forked processes (at least, forked
scripts) in linux do *not* inherit the effective group id - contrary to
the practice on other unices.  Linux folk, is this correct? 

The immediate workaround for those of you running mailman 1.0b5 under
linux is to fiddle with the ownership of the ~mailman/data directory a
bit: set the owner id to 'mail' (or whatever your mail process runs
with), make sure the group id is 'mailman', and make sure that it
enables user and group write. 

The real question, though, is whether there is any way in linux to
enable forked processes, even scripts, to inherit the effective gid of
the forking script.  Any obscure system call for that, or something,
which requires only membership in the group, not root privileges, to
run?

It might make sense for the installation mechanism to change the owner
of the data dir to that of the mail system, as the workaround does - but
that would sacrifice the ability to do that part of the installation
process as a regular user - root privilege is needed to chown.  So this
solution does not seem ideal.  There are other avenues, but we could
need to get the last word on the way that (redhat 5.x) linux is supposed
to be working, and what people normally to do achieve the kinds of 
things we're aiming for.  Insight and suggestions are welcome!

Ken Manheimer		  klm at python.org	    703 620-8990 x268
	    (orporation for National Research |nitiatives

	# If you appreciate Python, consider joining the PSA! #
		  # <http://www.python.org/psa/>. #






From mark at warren-wilson.edu  Fri Aug  7 05:13:51 1998
From: mark at warren-wilson.edu (Mark)
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 23:13:51 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Hi and, well, er, Help!
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980806222311.12485I-100000@owl.warren-wilson.edu>

Hi there.  First, I must say that I am a Social Sciences major who has a
work study job in the computer dept at my college, so please excuse that I
am not that bright with computers and thus this silly question.

We are transferring the administration of our all-campus mailing list to
the Director of Propaganda..er Public Information and mailman looked like
real sexy way for him to be able to administer and, well, I didn't want to
setup majordomo again cause I was in hospital for weeks after an attempt
on my own life due to sheer frustration.

Anyway, here is the lowdown:

the system is a Pent 200 running Debian 2.0
	smail           3.2.0.101-4.5 
	apache          1.3.0-2 
	python		1.5.1-4

The compile seemed to go well, the web pages it made worked ok and looked
real nifty.  I did manage to generate the error: 

	Mailman mail-wrapper:
	Failure to exec script. WANTED gid 8, GOT gid 1002.  (Reconfigure to take
	1002?)

But I fixed that with a recompile.  When the test list was created, it
sent me a message just as it should have.  An attempt to subscribe via the
web page sent a message just as it should have.  But....  both an attempt
to send for the "help" message and to reply to the subscribe message
produced this message to mail-daemon:

	"/home/mailman/mail/wrapper mailcmd test" ... failed: transport file:
	failed to open output file: Permission denied

and the smail logs produce this...

	08/06/1998 21:42:36: [m0z4bYC-000XZdC] Delivered TO:
	ORIG-TO:<test-request at robin.warren-wilson.edu> DIRECTOR:aliases
	TRANSPORT:pipe
	08/06/1998 21:42:36: [m0z4bYC-000XZhC] Received FROM:<+>
	HOST:robin.warren-wilson.edu PROTOCOL:bsmtp PROGRAM:smail SIZE:1384
	08/06/1998 21:42:36: [m0z4bYC-000XZhC] Delivered VIA:owl.warren-wilson.edu
	TO:mark at warren-wilson.edu ORIG-TO:<postmaster> ROUTER:inet_hosts
	TRANSPORT:smtp
	08/06/1998 21:42:36: [m0z4bYC-000XZhC] Completed.
	08/06/1998 21:42:38: [m0z4bYC-000XZdC] Error sent
	FOR:"/home/mailman/mail/wrapper mailcmd test" TO:postmaster
	08/06/1998 21:42:38: [m0z4bYC-000XZdC] Completed.

Stuff seems to have the right permissions, I tried every combo, changing
the group to mail, putting both mail and mailman in each others groups and
then finally putting hte whole /home/mailman into super slut mode 777.
Still no go... 

Any suggestions out there?  (and remember, I am a social sciences major,
so use small words).

mark





From ken at pwhinc.com  Fri Aug  7 16:18:17 1998
From: ken at pwhinc.com (Ken MacCuish)
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 10:18:17 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] low level failure
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.00.9808071015400.30563-100000@pwhinc.com>

FWIW

I am having the same problem that Luke mentioned in an earlier posting.

That is when trying to submit anyting via the web interface I receive the
following:

We're sorry, we hit a bug!

If you would like to help us identify the problem, please email a copy of this
page to the webmaster for this site with a description of what happened. Thanks! 

Traceback:


Content-type: text/html

We're sorry, we hit a bug!


Mailman experienced a very low level failure and could not even generate
a useful traceback.  Please report this to the Mailman administrator at
this site.



I have grabbed the driver script that was posted and am trying it out now.

-ken




From bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US  Fri Aug  7 23:28:35 1998
From: bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US (Barry A. Warsaw)
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 17:28:35 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] low level failure
References: <Pine.LNX.4.00.9808071015400.30563-100000@pwhinc.com>
Message-ID: <13771.29059.108732.278072@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>

>>>>> "KM" == Ken MacCuish <ken at pwhinc.com> writes:

    KM> I have grabbed the driver script that was posted and am trying
    KM> it out now.

Definitely give that a try.  I'm trying now to remember exactly what
the cause was, and I believe it was a permissions problem.  Make sure
that the program sin cgi-bin have the g+s bit set and are group owned
by mailman.  Otherwise, they won't have permission to open the log
files and in 1.0b5, the driver script wasn't good about reporting this 
problem accurately.

That should all be fixed in the current snapshot, if you feel like
doing a CVS update against the read-only tree.

-Barry



From bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US  Fri Aug  7 23:36:11 1998
From: bwarsaw at CNRI.Reston.Va.US (Barry A. Warsaw)
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 17:36:11 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Hi and, well, er, Help!
References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980806222311.12485I-100000@owl.warren-wilson.edu>
Message-ID: <13771.29515.944840.489448@anthem.cnri.reston.va.us>

>>>>> "M" == Mark  <mark at warren-wilson.edu> writes:

    M> Stuff seems to have the right permissions, I tried every combo,
    M> changing the group to mail, putting both mail and mailman in
    M> each others groups and then finally putting hte whole
    M> /home/mailman into super slut mode 777.  Still no go...

The fact that you opened up /home/mailman permissions wide open makes
me thing something else is going on.  Maybe it's not a bug in Mailman, 
but some other part of your -- say smail? -- installation?

    M> Any suggestions out there?  (and remember, I am a social
    M> sciences major, so use small words).

:-)

Okay, first place to look is in /home/mailman/logs/error and see if
there's anything getting output there (you may want to make sure that
the perms on the file are 666).  Mailman *should* log any and all
errors it encounters to this file.  The new driver script shouldn't
be a factor because you're seeing the problem via mail and not the
web.

The smail logs don't mean much to me (don't know much about smail),
but since I'm not seeing any tracebacks in there, I'm guess that
Mailman isn't hitting a bug that's just not getting reported.  It
*sounds* to me like there's some smail configuration problem, and it,
or some other component is failing to open the appropriate file.

Sorry, that's the best I can come up with right now ;-/

-Barry



From David.Sparrman at kristnet.org  Sun Aug  9 19:39:21 1998
From: David.Sparrman at kristnet.org (David.Sparrman at kristnet.org)
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1998 19:39:21 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] mailman, pipermail
Message-ID: <199808091739.TAA01585@hobbe.byggdok.se>

I need to get a listserver up and running in one week, and am currently
checking out mailman.

My current problem is that I am not familiar at all with mailing list
software. (etc etc, standard newbie warning)

The installation procedure for mailman is fairly well documented
including shell commands except for one stage: "point an external
archiver at the public and private archives" [pipermail].

I can't find anything in the pipermail package that give me any hints
about how this should be done, and dejanews have no further hints.

mailman 1.0b5 is installed in /home/mailman
pipermail 0.05 is installed in /usr/local/pipermail

if I run;
     python pipermail.py        - nothing happens
     python hypermail.py        - it complains with a message saying it
                                  can't open MBOX.
     mkdir mbox ; python hypermail.py -m /usr/local/pipermail/mbox

I seem to accomplish something. Not sure off what, though.
What else should be done? (looking sheepishly)


Thanks





From bob at staff.cs.usyd.edu.au  Wed Aug 19 00:45:08 1998
From: bob at staff.cs.usyd.edu.au (Bob Kummerfeld)
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 08:45:08 +1000
Subject: [Mailman-Users] mailman problem (?)
Message-ID: <199808182248.SAA18094@python.org>

I've installed mailman and followed the instructions to set up a list called
test.

I go to the management page for the list and I'm asked for"test Administrative
Authentication". I enter the correct password (as verified in the initial
mail) but the page that comes up is the general admin page (/mailman/admin).

Is this correct? I was expecting a page to allow me to manage the list.

Bob.



From gstein at svpal.org  Wed Aug 19 02:09:29 1998
From: gstein at svpal.org (Greg Stein)
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1998 17:09:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] mailman problem (?)
In-Reply-To: <199808182248.SAA18094@python.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.95.980818170739.17691B-100000@svpal.svpal.org>

I saw this same issue. At one point, I put the password into the URL (I
forget the argument name) and it worked after that. I could even remove
the URL modification. Apparently, the password screen does not set the
cookie properly, while the URL argument does.

-g

--
Greg Stein (gstein at lyra.org)                     execfile("disclaimer.py")

On Wed, 19 Aug 1998, Bob Kummerfeld wrote:

> I've installed mailman and followed the instructions to set up a list called
> test.
> 
> I go to the management page for the list and I'm asked for"test Administrative
> Authentication". I enter the correct password (as verified in the initial
> mail) but the page that comes up is the general admin page (/mailman/admin).
> 
> Is this correct? I was expecting a page to allow me to manage the list.
> 
> Bob.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Mailman-Users maillist  -  Mailman-Users at python.org
> http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users
> 
> 




From tomas at euronetics.se  Thu Aug 20 13:21:02 1998
From: tomas at euronetics.se (Tomas Fasth)
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 13:21:02 +0200
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Localization
Message-ID: <003101bdcc2c$9d30cb90$f6d52dc1@bishop.twinspot.net>

Hi, I'm new to this list.
IMHO, Mailman is a jolly good piece of software.
Have anyone tried to localize Mailman (translate to another language)?
A quick look gave me a hint that it isn't that straight forward. It seem to
exist quite a number of texts intended for user presentation inside scripts.
Oh, maybe some are for the administrator presentation. Anyway, I wish to
translate the whole thing. Like to share experiences on this topic, anyone?
I intend to join the developer's list as well to discuss what can be done to
make it easier in coming releases.

Thanks,
Tomas





From klm at cnri.reston.va.us  Thu Aug 20 17:12:43 1998
From: klm at cnri.reston.va.us (Ken Manheimer)
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 11:12:43 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Localization
In-Reply-To: <003101bdcc2c$9d30cb90$f6d52dc1@bishop.twinspot.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.96.980820110305.1139w-100000@glyph.cnri.reston.va.us>

On Thu, 20 Aug 1998, Tomas Fasth wrote:

> Hi, I'm new to this list.

Welcome.

> IMHO, Mailman is a jolly good piece of software.

Yay - thanks!

> Have anyone tried to localize Mailman (translate to another language)?
> A quick look gave me a hint that it isn't that straight forward. It seem to
> exist quite a number of texts intended for user presentation inside scripts.
> Oh, maybe some are for the administrator presentation. Anyway, I wish to
> translate the whole thing. Like to share experiences on this topic, anyone?
> I intend to join the developer's list as well to discuss what can be done to
> make it easier in coming releases.

If you take a look at the latest mailman version (see
http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-checkins for instructions
on following the current CVS revision), you'll see that we've (primarily
barry has) begun to separate out all the multi-line text messages into
separate files, and also are using a functional interface to the
messages.  Seems like this would be an opportune place to incorporate
locale sensitivity, among other things.  It would have to be generalized
a good bit to apply to *all* messages, but we suspect that it's a
start... 

(This does seem like an ideal topic for mailman-developers, which is
concerned with coding and other, um, system development issues -
mailman-users is more for end-user and mailman-administrator sorts of
questions.) 

Ken Manheimer		  klm at python.org	    703 620-8990 x268
	    (orporation for National Research |nitiatives

	# If you appreciate Python, consider joining the PSA! #
		  # <http://www.python.org/psa/>. #





From jerrya at fastrans.net  Fri Aug 21 06:42:29 1998
From: jerrya at fastrans.net (Jerry Adlersfluegel)
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 23:42:29 -0500
Subject: [Mailman-Users] misc problems and a bug report...
Message-ID: <35DCFAB4.B23A33F@fastrans.net>

I have set up 1.0b5 on linux 2.0.32 with sendmail 8.8.7.

The list is working ok, after I turned down the number of connections to
just one. Before that, multiple messages were going out all the time.

I'm not sure if that problem is resolved yet; but that isn't why I am
writing.

On the list info page, at the bottom where you enter your address and
hit "Edit Options," I receive the following in the error log (in
addition to the web page error that's returned):

Aug 20 23:35:21 1998 admin: [----- Traceback ------]
admin: Traceback (innermost last):
admin:   File "/home/mailman/scripts/driver", line 97, in run_main
admin:     main()
admin:   File "../Mailman/Cgi/subscribe.py", line 95, in main
admin:     call_script('options', [list._internal_name, member])
admin:   File "../Mailman/Cgi/subscribe.py", line 65, in call_script
admin:     list.Unlock()
admin: AttributeError: Unlock
admin: [----- Environment Variables -----]
admin:  DOCUMENT_ROOT: /home/httpd/html
admin:  REMOTE_HOST: 209.144.61.49
admin:  CONTENT_TYPE: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
admin:  PATH_TRANSLATED: /home/httpd/html/rtctable/
admin:  REMOTE_ADDR: 209.144.61.49
admin:  HTTP_VIA: 1.0 jerrya:3128 (Squid/1.NOVM.16)
admin:  HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE: en-US
admin:  HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR: 127.0.0.1
admin:  GATEWAY_INTERFACE: CGI/1.1
admin:  SERVER_NAME: jerrya.fastrans.net
admin:  HTTP_USER_AGENT: Mozilla/4.05 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.32 i486)
admin:  HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET: iso-8859-1,*,utf-8
admin:  HTTP_ACCEPT: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg,
image/pjpeg, image/png, */*
admin:  REQUEST_URI: /mailman/subscribe/rtctable/
admin:  HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL: Max-age=259200
admin:  PATH: /sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin
admin:  QUERY_STRING: 
admin:  SCRIPT_FILENAME: /home/mailman/cgi-bin/subscribe
admin:  SERVER_PORT: 80
admin:  CONTENT_LENGTH: 26
admin:  HTTP_HOST: jerrya.fastrans.net
admin:  REQUEST_METHOD: POST
admin:  SCRIPT_NAME: /mailman/subscribe
admin:  SERVER_ADMIN: root at localhost
admin:  SERVER_SOFTWARE: Apache/1.2.4 PHP/FI-2.0
admin:  PYTHONPATH: /home/mailman
admin:  PATH_INFO: rtctable/jerrya at fastrans.net
admin:  HTTP_REFERER:
http://jerrya.fastrans.net/mailman/listinfo/rtctable
admin:  SERVER_PROTOCOL: HTTP/1.0
admin:  REMOTE_PORT: 9300


---------------------
That's the end of the report. 

I think that's the only thing that's failing at this time.

Does this mean anything?

Thanks!

--
Jerry Adlersfluegel
http://quake.fastrans.net/~jerrya/



From gobig at email.msn.com  Fri Aug 28 06:02:09 1998
From: gobig at email.msn.com (GoBig)
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 21:02:09 -0700
Subject: [Mailman-Users] Mailman configuration question
Message-ID: <0a3164303041c88UPIMSSMTPUSR02@email.msn.com>

Hi,
I've just recently setup the mailman list server software and had a
question I couldn't find the answer to.   The question is:

Is there any way to substitute this welcome announcement with one I
modify??  I'd like to send a welcome msg to new users but the one listed
below is far too detailed.  I saw in the list configuration options, the
ability to prepend a message to the "default" one but I'd like to do away
with the "default" text below.  Is this possible?


Thanks,
John Jones
Numbskull Interactive
www.numbskull.com


>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: hognews-admin at eastsideharley.com
> > [SMTP:hognews-admin at eastsideharley.com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 1998 1:35 PM
> > To: John Jones
> > Subject: Welcome To "Hognews"!
> >
> > Welcome to the Hognews at eastsideharley.com mailing list!
> >
> > To post to this list, send your email to:
> >
> >   hognews at eastsideharley.com
> >
> > General information about the mailing list is at:
> >
> >   http://mailman.eastsideharley.com/mailman/listinfo/hognews
> >
> > If you ever want to unsubscribe or change your options (eg, switch to
> > or from digest mode, change your password, etc.), visit your
> > subscription page at:
> >
> >
> >
>
http://mailman.eastsideharley.com/mailman/options/hognews/johnjon at microsof
> > t.com
> >
> >
> > You can also make such adjustments via email by sending a message to:
> >
> >   Hognews-request at eastsideharley.com
> >
> > with the word `help' in the subject or body, and you will get back a
> > message with instructions.
> >
> > You must know your password to change your options (including changing
> > the password, itself) or to unsubscribe.  It is:
> >
> >   eTqu
> >
> > If you forget your password, don't worry, you will receive a monthly
> > reminder telling you what all your eastsideharley.com mailing list
> > passwords are, and how to unsubscribe or change your options.  There
> > is also a button on your options page that will email your current
> > password to you.
> >
> > You may also have your password mailed to you automatically off of the
> > web page noted above.
>
>
>
>
>