[Mailman-Users] Installing Mailman on an Virtual Host

[Bill Warner]

Joan Coyne wrote on 949949601:
>I would like to install Mailman, but I don't have root access to
>my server, only shell access.  I am using an iServer Virtual
>Server.  Is there anyway to get around the need for root access?
>Does mailman have to run as its own user and group?

Joan,

Mailman works just fine on an iServer VS.  I have v1.0 running there right 
now.  You do have to make some mods to the configure and configure.in files 
to stop the build process from trying to force you to run it as 
mailman:mailman (uid:gid).  Once the configure[.in] file mods (2 lines in 
each file) are made, mailman will run just fine as <your_server_login>:vuser.

Here is basically what you need to do:

1. Make sure that you have installed an appropriate version of python 
locally on your virtual server.

2. Use vadduser to create the mailman pseudo-user and home directory.  Then 
set the directory perms per the mailman INSTALL file.

3. Edit the mailman configure[.in] files to
(a) replace references to uid mailman with <your_server_login>, and
(b) replace references to gid mailman with vuser.
(I can provide v1.0 diffs for this if necessary, but it's not too hard to 
figure out what needs to be changed.)

4. Configure mailman like this (assuming that ~/usr/home/mailman is you 
mailman home):
./configure  --prefix=/usr/home/<your_server_login>/usr/home/mailman
--with-mail-gid=vuser --with-cgi-gid=vuser

5. Follow the rest of the INSTALL directions, including possibly README.BSD.

--Bill