[Mailman-Users] check_perms

[Paul Cox]

On Wednesday, Aug 29, 2001, Matthew Chapman wrote:

> I am running a Linux Mandrake 8.0 system with apache and sendmail.
> 
> I managed to get Mailman running, however for reasons I will not go into,
> I removed and restart the install from scratch - going back as far as to
> re-untar and recreate the mailman user (after userdel -r'ing)...
> 
> Now when I get to the step where i run check_perms, it gives me the
> following error:

<snip!>

Since you're using Mandrake 8.0, you're probably better off using the
Mailman .rpm (last updated and actually fixed by me =)   You can get it
from any 'cooker' mirror (file name mailman-2.0.5-3mdk.i586.rpm) or you
can download it from my site (ftp.coxcentral.com/pub/customrpms/mailman/).

I still need to update it for 2.0.6, but I just haven't got around to
it.  I'll try to do that ASAP (I'm also toying with the idea of an .rpm
for 2.1a2 for the few brave souls.. we'll see).  One thing you'll notice
is that it doesn't install in /home/mailman, but in /var/lib/mailman to
more compliant with FHS and the Mandrake way of doing things.  Also,
there is no mailman user and group necessary right now, as it's using
mail.mail.  That's because to be a Mandrake .rpm, it is required that
the package can build as a non-root user.  Since we would have to create
the user first, that's not a possiblity.  mail.mail already exists as
part of the core system, and no, there it is perfectly safe to do it
this way.  I hoping to get mailman.mailman as part of the core system,
but I haven't heard a response on that yet.  It'll work this way for
now. =)

Also, the .rpm assumes that you will be using Postfix (as that's the
Mandrake default MTA), so you will need to do some stuff manually since
you use sendmail (like adding the mailman and mailman-owner aliases).
You will also want to check your sendmail config to see what user it
delivers as to an external file or command.  Postfix defaults to nobody,
so I configured Mailman with --with-mail-gid=nobody.

I've attached to this the latest chagelog entry from the .rpm just in
case you're (or anyone else =) is interested.  This is how I'm running
Mailman, and it works perfectly. =)  Let me know if you have any
problems.


* Fri Jun 01 2001 Paul Cox <pcox at linux-mandrake.com> 2.0.5-3mdk
  - Moved Mailman to /var/lib/mailman to be more compliant with FHS.
    (See archive of mdk-admin at 
    http://freezer-burn.org/archives/mdk-admin/ if you have questions
    about this.)
  - Changed --with-mail-gid and --with-cgi-gid to user names instead of
    user numbers in case they ever change.
  - Changed --with-mail-gid=nobody as that's how Postfix is setup by
    default (see default_privs in Postfix's main.cf).
  - Fixed upgrades (will not overwrite config files, etc.), and tweaked
    files section (added a 'BuildRequires: perl' as a result).
  - Made sure that bin/update runs in order to update any existing
    lists.
  - Fixed permissions.  Mailman will also try to fix its permissions on
    install.
  - Added mailman.conf for apache configuration (included into
    httpd.conf).
  - Install will now attempt to add the required aliases (Postfix only).
  - Removed mailman user addition (Mailman requires that whatever user and
    group is passed to the configure script to be the userid and groupid, so
    since we did --with-username=mail and --with-groupname=mail (so that we
    don't have to be root to build), creating a mailman user was not
    necessary).
  - Fixed crontab.in import.  Not in the right format to be simply put in
    /etc/cron.d, so we have to use crontab to import it (as user mail).
  - Removed obsolete LEIAME patch.
  - Changed URL back to the much nicer www.list.org mirror.
  - Lots and lots of macroization and countless other .spec file
    changes.


-- 
Paul Cox <paul at coxcentral dot com>
Kernel: 2.4.7-12.3mdk  -  Uptime: 8 days 18 hours 59 minutes.