[Mailman-Users] list removal and making a list public

Darren backdoc at crotchett.com
Wed Jan 9 21:53:14 CET 2002


Richard and all,

Thanks.  I appreciate your help and advice.  With your suggestions, I
upgraded and now have a working list.

For the benefit of others who may find this thread via the archives, I will
just add a couple of comments.  I had to stray from the INSTALL file just a
little bit because I had originally used the ports to install Mailman.
Therefore, I already had a mailman user and mailman group.  Because FreeBSD
ports creates the group and user automagically, I couldn't do some things as
user mailman that the INSTALL asks be done.  For example, the ./configure.
I tried #su mailman -c <options>.  But, mailman doesn't have a shell on my
box.  So, I did it as root and then chown -R the mailman directory.

Also, when adding to the mm_cfg.py file:
DEFAULT_HOST_NAME   = 'yourdomain'
DEFAULT_URL         = 'http://www.yourdomain.org/mailman/'

You must also add this:
MAILMAN_OWNER     = 'mailman-owner@%s' % DEFAULT_HOST_NAME

Just looking at it, you might not think so at first.  But, if you don't,
MAILMAN_OWNER will take the DEFAULT_HOST_NAME part from the lines above it
in Default.py instead of your edits in mm_cfg.py.

Also, whenever you are editing your list preferences via a browser, it seems
to matter that you save your changes between pages.  I found out the hard
way.  I made a bunch of changes across several pages.  The only page's
changes that got saved was the last page.

Oh.  And, don't use list names with spaces :).

Good luck.
Darren


> The absence of lists and the difference in presentation depending on the
IP
> address specified in the URL used to access the MM web GUI suggests the
> problem you are having results form MM's virtual hosting feature. If you
> changef the value of VIRTUAL_HOST_OVERVIEW = 0 in
$prefix/Mailman/mm_cfg.py
> then the problem would probably go away; but read on before you do that.
>
> Looking at your site through http://www.kneedeep.org/mailman/admin, it
> gives an e-mail address for the mailman owner mailman-owner at localhost as
> which suggests that DEFAULT_HOST_NAME = 'localhost' in your
> $prefix/Mailman/Defaults.py. You really want to set DEFAULT_HOST_NAME to
> the IP name of your host through which you expect the MM web GUI to be
> accessed in $prefix/Mailman/mm_cfg.py: localhost won't provide
> communication for a user on another machine. You also want to set
> MAILMAN_OWNER to include the IP name of your machine in
> $prefix/Mailman/mm_cfg.py.
>
> As an aside, do your own test and accessing through a fully qualified
> domain name for your mailman machine not 'localhost'. That way you'll see
> your installation as your users will; they can never access it through
> 'localhost' I hope.
>
> >Note below that the list name "Hinds calculus ii" does not match the
error
> >message echoed to screen output generated by "lynx
localhost/mailman/admin".
> >The error message says "No such list hinds" (not "No such list Hinds
> >calculus ii).  This might be related to the problem of not being able to
> >delete the list.  Maybe lists
> >with spaces in the name is causing some of the problems.
>
> I suspect that if you said the following on the command line it might
work:
>
>      lynx "localhost/mailman/admin/hinds calculus ii"
>
> The following URL certainly does work from my machine using Netscape:
>
>      http://www.kneedeep.org/mailman/listinfo/hinds%20calculus%20ii
>
> However, spaces in list names are not a good idea. Bear in mind that the
> the list name is going to be the local part of what must be a valid
> Internet addr-spec as described in RFC2822 section 3.4.1 as well as being
a
> directory name and part of file names in your file system, and part of
URIs
> for accessing through the web GUI. That means that when it is used the
> local part has to be quoted (enclosed in double quotes) to be valid if it
> contains spaces or special characters like '.'. In all honesty I'm not
even
> sure if MM is programmed to cope with all the possible implications of
this.
>
> Why make life difficult. Just keep list names short and do not allow
> embedded whitespace, puncutation etc - all those things that need to be
> escaped in URLs, on command lines and in mail address specifications.
Stick
> to a-zA-Z0-9-_ characters in your list names and you won't go far wrong.
>
>
> >As far as what I've tried to do to remove the list, the output below
pretty
> >much speaks for itself.  But, to summarize, I have tried using qoutes and
> >escaping
> >the spaces in the list name.  Again, can I just delete the references to
the
> >lists I want to delete from /lists and /archives?
>
> I'm not sure as to why you are having the deletion problem. Given that
> you've not really got started with Mailman I'd:
>
> 1. treat what's happened so far as good experience of what can go wrong
>
> 2. blow away your 2.0.5 install
>
> 3. download 2.0.8 from
> http://telia.dl.sourceforge.net/mailman/mailman-2.0.8.tgz
>
> 4. redo you installation from mailman-2.0.8.tgz
>
> 5. check your $prefix/Mailman/Defaults.py following installation and see
if
> the variables discussed look sensible
>
> 6. avoid creating lists with names that will cause problems.
>
> Take heart, it took me three or four goes when I first installed MM to get
> an installation that worked right
>
>
> cheers
>
> Richard
>
> >Thanks for helping,
> >Darren
> >
> >If you will go to http://www.kneedeep.org/mailman/listinfo, you can see
for
> >yourself the output generated there (neither test list shows up).
> >Likewise, you can go to http://www.kneedeep.org/mailman/admin and see
that
> >both lists show up there and if you follow the link to Hinds calulus
> >ii, it will give you a log in prompt (that is different from what you get
> >when you view it from localhost).
> >
> > >From localhost, here is exactly what I get when I type, as root, "lynx
> >localhost/mailman/listinfo":
> >
> ># from screen>                  localhost Mailing Lists
> >
> ># from screen>
> ># from screen>   Welcome!
> ># from screen>
> ># from screen>   Below is a listing of all the public mailing lists on
> ># from screen>   localhost. Click on a list name to get more
> ># from screen>   information about the list, or to subscribe,
unsubscribe,
> ># from screen>   and change the preferences on your subscription.
> ># from screen>   To visit the info page for an unadvertised list, open a
URL
> ># from screen>   similar to this one, but with a '/' and the
> ># from screen>   list name appended.
> ># from screen>
> ># from screen>   List administrators, you can visit the list admin
overview
> ># from screen>   page to find the management interface for your
> ># from screen>   list.
> ># from screen>
> ># from screen>   (Send questions or comments to mailman-owner at localhost.)
> ># from screen>
> ># from screen>
> ># from screen>   List Description
> ># from screen>   Hinds calculus ii [no description available]
> ># from screen>
>
>___________________________________________________________________________
_
> ># from screen>
> ># from screen>   Delivered by Mailman
> ># from screen>   version 2.0.5 Python Powered GNU's Not Unix Mailman home
> ># from screen>   page
> ># from screen>   Python home page
> ># from screen>   GNU home page
> ># from screen>
> >
> > >From localhost, here is exactly what I get when I type, as root, "lynx
> >localhost/mailman/admin":
> >
> ># from screen>   kneedeep.org mailing lists - Admin Links
> ># from screen>
> ># from screen>   # from screen>
> ># from screen>   No such list hinds
> ># from screen>
> ># from screen>   Below is the collection of publicly-advertised mailman
> ># from screen>   mailing lists on kneedeep.org. Click on a list name
> ># from screen>   to visit the configuration pages for that list. To visit
> ># from screen>   the administrators configuration page for an
> ># from screen>   unadvertised list, open a URL similar to this one, but
with
> ># from screen>   a '/' and the right list name appended.
> ># from screen>
> ># from screen>   General list information can be found at the mailing
list
> ># from screen>   overview page.
> ># from screen>
> ># from screen>   (Send questions and comments to
mailman-owner at localhost.)
> ># from screen>
> ># from screen>
> ># from screen>   List Description
> ># from screen>   Hinds calculus ii [no description available]
> ># from screen>   test This is a test list and will soon be deleted.
> ># from screen>
>
>___________________________________________________________________________
_
> >
> ># from screen>
> ># from screen>   Delivered by Mailman
> ># from screen>   version 2.0.5 Python Powered GNU's Not Unix Mailman home
> ># from screen>   page
> ># from screen>   Python home page
> ># from screen>   GNU home page
> ># from screen>
> >
> >Here is what I have tried in order to delete the list.
> >
> ># from screen>   fbsd# whoami
> ># from screen>   root
> >
> ># from screen>   fbsd# pwd
> ># from screen>   /usr/local/mailman/bin
> >
> ># from screen>   fbsd# ./list_lists
> ># from screen>   2 matching mailing lists found:
> ># from screen>       Hinds calculus ii - [no description available]
> ># from screen>                    test - This is a test list and will
soon
> ># from screen>   be deleted.
> >
> ># from screen>   fbsd# ./rmlist "Hinds calculus ii"
> ># from screen>   Not removing archives.  Reinvoke with -a to remove them.
> ># from screen>   Removing list info
> >
> ># from screen>   fbsd# ./rmlist -a "Hinds calculus ii"
> ># from screen>   Removing list info
> ># from screen>   hinds calculus ii private archives not found as
> ># from screen>   /usr/local/mailman/archives/private/hinds calculus ii
> ># from screen>   Removing private archives
> ># from screen>   Removing public archives
> ># from screen>   Removing public archives
> >
> ># from screen>   fbsd# ./list_lists
> ># from screen>   2 matching mailing lists found:
> ># from screen>       Hinds calculus ii - [no description available]
> ># from screen>                    test - This is a test list and will
soon
> ># from screen>   be deleted.
> >
> >
> ># from screen>   fbsd# ./rmlist \Hinds\ calculus\ ii
> ># from screen>   Not removing archives.  Reinvoke with -a to remove them.
> ># from screen>   Removing list info
> >
> ># from screen>   fbsd# ./list_lists
> ># from screen>   2 matching mailing lists found:
> ># from screen>       Hinds calculus ii - [no description available]
> ># from screen>                    test - This is a test list and will
soon
> ># from screen>   be deleted.
>
>
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