[Mailman-Users] Something is fishy with RedHat 7 + Mailman 2.0rc1

[David B. O'Donnell]

I moved from RedHat 6.2 to RedHat 7.0 last night. Prior to the move, I
copied all the data from ~mailman to a separate disk. The RedHat 7 install
was a "fresh" one, so none of the old 6.2 stuff is lying around. I also
applied the errata patch and updated to the latest package list from their
update server.

I copied the ~mailman files into the new /home/ directory, then did a
straight install from the mailman 2.0rc1 archive. I made certain the smrsh
symlink is in place, ~mailman/bin/check_perms returns no problems, and that
all the list aliases are in place and working. I have triple-checked the
relevant lines in httpd.conf to make sure they work. 

Going to http://www.destinyinternet.com/listinfo shows that there are no
public lists on the server; however, two are supposed to be--one active list
and one test list.

Going to http://www.destinyinternet.com/listinfo/david-test brings me to the
proper list info page. This works for the other three lists I host (one is
public, two are private).

Going to http://www.destinyinternet.com/admin/david-test *presently* sends
me off into la-la land, where I time out before I get the page. Earlier
tonight, however, it showed up fine -- for david-test ONLY, with the other
three lists also sending me off into la-la land.

(I am tailing the error log for mailman, plus the httpd access and error
logs for www.destinyinternet.com, all the time. So far everything seems
normal)

When I *was* able to get into .../admin/david-test, I clicked on the
"pending administrative requests" link and got an error. This is what my
mailman error log shows:

admin(19363): [----- Mailman Version: 2.0rc1 -----]
admin(19363): [----- Traceback ------]
admin(19363): Traceback (innermost last):
admin(19363):   File "/home/mailman/scripts/driver", line 96, in run_main
admin(19363):     main()
admin(19363):   File "/home/mailman/Mailman/Cgi/admindb.py", line 95, in
main
admin(19363):     mlist.Save()
admin(19363):   File "/home/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 845, in Save
admin(19363):     self.SaveRequestsDb()
admin(19363):   File "/home/mailman/Mailman/ListAdmin.py", line 93, in
SaveRequestsDb
admin(19363):     self.__closedb()
admin(19363):   File "/home/mailman/Mailman/ListAdmin.py", line 80, in
__closedb
admin(19363):     fp = open(self.__filename, 'w')
admin(19363): IOError: [Errno 13] Permission
denied: '/home/mailman/lists/david-test/request.db'
admin(19363): [----- Python Information -----]
admin(19363): sys.version    = 1.5.2 (#1, Aug 25 2000, 09:33:37)  [GCC 2.96
20000731 (experimental)]
admin(19363): sys.executable = /usr/bin/python
admin(19363): sys.prefix     = /usr
admin(19363): sys.exec_prefix= /usr
admin(19363): sys.path       = /usr
admin(19363): sys.platform   = linux-i386
admin(19363): [----- Environment Variables -----]
admin(19363): 	DOCUMENT_ROOT: /web/domains/destinynewmedia.net
admin(19363): 	SERVER_ADDR: 209.8.223.164
admin(19363): 	QUERY_STRING: 
admin(19363): 	PATH_TRANSLATED: /web/domains/destinynewmedia.net/david-test
admin(19363): 	REMOTE_ADDR: 209.8.223.165
admin(19363): 	HTTP_UA_OS: MacOS
admin(19363): 	HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE: en
admin(19363): 	GATEWAY_INTERFACE: CGI/1.1
admin(19363): 	SERVER_NAME: www.destinynewmedia.net
admin(19363): 	HTTP_CONNECTION: Keep-Alive
admin(19363): 	HTTP_USER_AGENT: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE
5.0; Mac_PowerPC)
admin(19363): 	HTTP_ACCEPT: */*
admin(19363): 	REQUEST_URI: /mailman/admindb/david-test
admin(19363): 	HTTP_UA_CPU: PPC
admin(19363): 	HTTP_EXTENSION: Security/Remote-Passphrase
admin(19363): 	SCRIPT_FILENAME: /home/mailman/cgi-bin//admindb
admin(19363): 	PATH_INFO: /david-test
admin(19363): 	HTTP_HOST: www.destinynewmedia.net
admin(19363): 	REQUEST_METHOD: GET
admin(19363): 	SERVER_SIGNATURE: <ADDRESS>Apache/1.3.14 Server at <A
HREF="mailto:atropos at fates.org">www.destinynewmedia.net</A> Port
80</ADDRESS>

admin(19363): 	SCRIPT_NAME: /mailman/admindb
admin(19363): 	SERVER_ADMIN: atropos at fates.org
admin(19363): 	SERVER_SOFTWARE: Apache/1.3.14 (Unix)
admin(19363): 	PYTHONPATH: /home/mailman
admin(19363): 	HTTP_COOKIE: david-test:admin=280200000069c6abf739732800000063396533663730313833613332633638333366346337353561326162626461313563313061306536
admin(19363): 	SERVER_PROTOCOL: HTTP/1.1
admin(19363): 	REMOTE_PORT: 49365
admin(19363): 	HTTP_REFERER: http://www.destinynewmedia.net/mailman/admin/david-test

The listing for 'request.db' shows:

-rw-r--r--    1 mailman  mailman         2 Oct 25 20:58 request.db

This is the same for the other lists.

FWIW, I noticed while trying to discover why I was not getting posts to one
of my lists that I wasn't in the member list. When I tried to run the
add_member script, it just sits and spins and as far as I can tell
hangs. This is the traceback I get when I kill the process:

Traceback (innermost last):
  File "./add_members", line 221, in ?
    main()
  File "./add_members", line 170, in main
    ml = MailList.MailList(listname)
  File "/home/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 77, in __init__
    self.Lock()
  File "/home/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 1322, in Lock
    self.__lock.lock(timeout)
  File "/home/mailman/Mailman/LockFile.py", line 286, in lock
    self.__sleep()
  File "/home/mailman/Mailman/LockFile.py", line 424, in __sleep
    time.sleep(interval)
KeyboardInterrupt

Lastly, I'm noticing that it takes a LONG time for posts to actually make it
to lists. Like up to an hour for them to go from arriving at the wrapper
script to actually being posted.

I'm at a loss for what's going on. Anyone with ideas, please let me know,
I'm about ready to either go back to Mailman 1.2 or start looking for
another list manager.