[Mailman-Users] Almost there

[Mike T. Gholson]

Holy crap, I figured it out.  Amazing.  Okay, here's
the deal related to Exim and Mailman.

Default install of Redhat 7.1 comes with sendmail.  We
all know that.  But, I didn't like the manual steps required
to create a list using sendmail.  So, I switched my MTA to Exim.

After I got Exim working correctly, I geared my efforts toward
getting Mailman to work properly.

Most items were working fine, I could create a list, the owner
was notified, a user could request membership, and they would
receive a confirmation check.

But, when the confirmation check was sent back to the exim/mailman
server... it bounced.

I even verified (as most of you have been watching) that the
directories and configuration files were created correctly with
the newlist command.  I should have been working!!

I failed to re-do one thing.  I was not rebuilding my Mailman
configuration to use the exim user account!  It was still trying
to use the --with-mail-gid using the old sendmail account.

After a rebuild with the exim user, it began to work smoothly.

Therefore, steps in question:

1) Disable sendmail
2) Install exim
3) Get exim working
4) Install mailman using the exim user for mail transport
5) Add mailman parameters to the exim 'configure' file
6) Restart services
7) Create a list
8) Verify that the list-admin is notified
9) Create a user
10) Verify that the new user is notified
11) Send confirmation back to the server for the new user
12) Send test messages to the list



These are the things that make *nix so fun.  It's annoying
and a pain in the ass until you get it working.  After that,
you love it.  Sort-of a hate/love relationship, eh?

-- Mike



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nigel Metheringham [mailto:Nigel.Metheringham at VData.co.uk]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 5:03 AM
> To: Mike T. Gholson
> Cc: mailman-users at python.org
> Subject: RE: [Mailman-Users] Almost there
> 
> 
> On 05 Jun 2001 22:31:00 -0700, Mike T. Gholson wrote:
> > Something is awry.  It's not creating the aliases correctly
> > in the /etc/aliases file.  I wonder if it's the path statement
> > in the LRU List statement.  It's got a 7 before the path.
> 
> Mailman doesn't add things to the aliases file, and the exim
> configuration I describe does not use aliases for the list functions -
> instead it tests the address (with appropriate prefix/suffix removal)
> against the existance of a file within the mailman tree - 
> this tells it
> whether a list exists.
> 
> > calling list_director director
> 
> it looks for a list construct...
> 
> > require_files = /home/mailman/lists/test22-users/config.db
> 
> checks whether the config.db file exists...
> 
> > test existence of /home/mailman/lists/test22-users/config.db
> >   required present, EACCES => unknown
> >   No such file or directory
> 
> and it either doesn't exist or is inacessible - actually check the
> permissions against the user that exim runs as (although that 
> appears to
> be root here so thats not the problem unless NFS is in the mix)
> 
> > list_director director skipped: file existence failure
> > test22-users at 240z.org is undeliverable:
> >   unknown local-part "test22-users" in domain "240z.org"
> > search_tidyup called
> 
> things to check:-
>   1. Is your mailman installation under /home/mailman
>      [if not change the macro at the top of the exim config]
> 
>   2. Does /home/mailman/lists/test22-users exist (or
>      appropriate prefixed directory from (1).
> 
>   3. Is there a config.db in there and accessible
>      (at least to see - don't need to be able to access it)
>      from the uid/gid that exim runs under.
> 
>     Nigel.
> -- 
> [ Nigel Metheringham           Nigel.Metheringham at InTechnology.co.uk ]
> [ Phone: +44 1423 850000                         Fax +44 1423 858866 ]
> [ - Comments in this message are my own and not ITO opinion/policy - ]
> [ ----- Security is not an add-on -- security is a way of life ----- ]
> 
>