[Mailman-Users] Migration from Majordomo

[Paul Tomblin]

Quoting Hrvoje Niksic (hniksic at iskon.hr):
> Here at work, we run 30+ lists using majordomo and I'm considering a
> transition to Mailman.  I would like to hear about experiences with
> migration from Majordomo to Mailman.  Is there an automation mechanism
> to convert configuration files?  What does one do with archives and
> digests?  What about subscriber lists?  Are there things one should
> watch out for?

I just transitioned 15 mailing lists from majordomo to mailman, and it was a
major pain.  One of the biggest flaws in mailman, in my opinion, is that none
of the config files are in plain text, so you can't whip up your own
conversion scripts to convert majordomo to mailman, and you can't build a
bunch of nearly identical mailing lists automatically and then make small
changes interactively.  With majordomo, most of my lists I copied the same
list.config file and then did some global search and replace.  To do the same
in mailman, I'd have to learn python and learn more about the internals than I
plan to right away.

My checklist for converting a majordomo list to mailman.
- create the mailman list.
- use the web interface to set up the mailman list.
- change the alises to point to the new list.  Mine are all subscriber-post
  only, so any stuff that comes in in during the next few steps will be held
  until I manually approve them.
- convert all the majordomo archives using ~/bin/arch.  I used a lot of
    for i in ~majordomo/lists/<foo>.archive/* ; do
        echo "converting $i"
        bin/arch <foo> $i
    done
- make sure the list is set to "don't email me notification of subscribers".
- cut and paste the appropriate subscription list into the appropriate box on
  membership management.
- set it back to "email me notification of subscribers".
- if any posts came in while you were doing this, approve them.
- send out a message telling everybody the details of the new list manager and
  where to find the web config pages.
- watch the maillogs while the test message is going out to make sure things
  look right.

-- 
Paul Tomblin, not speaking for anybody.
SETI at Home:  Finally a *good* way to impress Jodie Foster
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