[Mailman-Users] I don't really know what is right or wrong

[Jon Carnes]

The archives have a better step-by-step of the setup but here is a little 
more detail:

You should copy the source to some directory, it really doesn't matter 
where.  I like to use /usr/src/mailman/...

Once you have the source expanded into that directory (download the source 
as a tar.gz file and use "tar -xzf ..." to expand it), then you can start 
the install. 

I've only installed it on Linux - and works great.

Create a group on the local server named "mailman". Create a user on the 
local server named "mailman" and add him to the group "mailman".  Create a 
home directory for the user mailman (usually /home/mailman).  Make sure 
that the user "mailman" and group "mailman" own the directory.

Do you have "sendmail" installed as your MTA (mail-server)?  Mailman works 
with many different MTA's but 2.08 assumes that you are using a sendmail 
compliant mail-server and gives you messages compliant with Sendmail.  
Surprisingly, you will find that its integration with Postfix, Exim, and 
Qmail are actually tighter and make Mailman ultimately easier to use... but 
I digress.

Find out what Group-ID your MTA runs as, then find out what Group-ID your 
Web server runs as.  You will need these to run the ./configure program.

The INSTALL text lays this out fairly nicely, and if you are confused about 
it, you can simply run install without specifying the GID's.  Later if 
there are problems, you can look at the error logs in Mailman, and they 
will point out the proper GID's that you should have used

Once you run "./configure"  and then  "make install"
you will find that the install has put multiple files into the home 
directory that you created for the user "mailman".

>From this point you can edit the file: ~mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py (using 
Default.py as the guide), and then you can create your lists using 
~mailman/bin/newlist

To run "check_perms", change to the directory ~mailman/bin/ and run 
./check_perms.

~mailman means the home directory for the users "mailman" (/home/mailman)

Hope this helps...

Jon Carnes
On Tuesday 08 January 2002 22:54, Tim Legg wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am trying to follow the instructions as best as I can, but I don't
> think I am understanding it correctly.  Is there any better document
> other than the INSTALL document that comes with mailman-208?  I honestly
> can't see myself installing mailman by using this document.
>
> Here are some questions/problems I came across anyway.
>
> In step 1, I was to create an installation directory which is referred to
> as $prefix.  The next paragraph told me that /home/mailman is the
> default. I copied the tarball into this directory for installation and
> followed the remaining steps.  In step 2 I ran ./configure  The directory
> where my source code was present was /home/mailman/ and since that was
> the default, I didn't have to chenge that.  make install worked perfectly
> but check_perms found 333 problems.  At the end of step 3, I am told to
> run check_perms from a location other than the source directory.
>
> I thought the install directory and source directory were the same thing
> and that make install would just copy the files to where ever they need
> to be.  But now I am told that they need to be different.  Where was I
> supposed to save my soucre then?  Is /home/mailman the right place, or
> did I screw up royally doing that?
>
> I honestly don't have any idea what is going on anymore.  I am probably
> beyond any hope at this point, now that neither the FreeBSD ports version
> worked or my building it manually.  Is this really meant to be run under
> FreeBSD?  At how awkward this install is, I am beginning to have my
> doubts.
>
> I also don't know what all that set-group-id stuff is about or how python
> works.  It took forever to find that there is no Run command for 'Run
> bin/check/perms' as written in Step 3.
>
> What I need is a step-by-step description telling me what I need to type
> in order to get this thing installed on a freshly installed version of
> FreeBSD.  Is there anything that can be done?
>
>
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