[Mailman-Users] different server, same result (install problems/questions)

[Dan Mick]

paz wrote:
> 
> After failing to install via package and by compiling the source on a
> system at work, I realized I could test installing 2.0beta5 on a FreeBSD
> server at home. I still can't create a new list using bin/newlist; I get
> the now familiar result:
> 
> -------------------------------------
> $ ./bin/newlist
> Traceback (innermost last):
>   File "./bin/newlist", line 37, in ?
>     import paths
> ImportError: No module named paths
> $
> -------------------------------------
> 
> What does this mean?

For whatever reason, bin/newlist can't open paths.py, which is supposed to
also live in bin.

1) is it there?
2) what are its permissions?
3) can you run newlist under something like truss or strace or whatever FreeBSD has
to trace system calls and find out exactly why the open fails?

> I'm running FreeBSD 3.4 on both servers. The one at work is behind a
> dorporate firewall, so I can't use the ports collection. The one at home
> (whose results are above) can use the ports collection in the normal
> manner - compiling/installing/resolving dependencies right off the net.
> 
> Installing on the server at home, I noticed a couple of interesting
> things:
> 
> -- The install program did create user and group mailman, but I couldn't
> su to user mailman after the install was completed. 

The INSTALL script says to create these users by hand; is there something
extra supplied outside the Mailman distribution that did before this?

> Is this by design? Are
> administrators no longer supposed to su to user mailman to do things like
> create new lists? 

I don't know that that was ever recommended, but what I do is make myself a 
member of the mailman group, and then everything I have to do is accomplished
via group permissions.

> The passwd file listed the home directory as "-s",
> whatever that means.

Sounds wrong.  I wonder what it was that really added those users?
 
> -- The install directly off the net placed the files in a subdir off of
> /usr/ports/distfiles; no files were copied to /home/mailman. Do we usually
> copy the files there manually when done with the install?

?  There's "get the files" and then there's "configure and install"; did
you read INSTALL?

> -- Bottom line, I'm still uncertain how to actually get mailman working
> properly. The automatic install from the ports collection didn't even seem
> to work properly. What's necessary to resolve the "No Module Named Paths"
> problem?

I've no idea what "the automatic install from the ports collection" means, so
perhaps we're talking at cross-purposes, but maybe you should read INSTALL
anyway.