[Mailman-Users] Installing Mailman without root privileges?

[Bob Weissman]

At 09:26 PM 8/7/02, Tom Whiting wrote:
>You need ROOT access (generally) to modify things such as cgi aliases, 
>pointing directly to your list.

No you don't, you just need write access to the configuration files.

>You need ROOT access to create the mailman user (though this CAN be done as 
>your  regular user I believe... It's just not a good idea).

No you don't, you just need an appropriate interface which uses root behind the scenes.

>You need ROOT access to create the aliases for mailman.

No you don't, you just need write access to the aliases file and execute access to newaliases or a similar program, which can be setuid root.

>You need ROOT access to restart apache so that your cgi-bin aliases will work

No you don't, you just need execute access to the apacherestart or apachectl program, which can be setuid root.

I don't want to seem overly pedantic. But all of this is possible depending on your ISP. My ISP charges extra for root access, so I don't have it. But I have enough privileges so that I can fully administer Mailman without ever needing root.

- Bob