[Mailman-Users] Problem with getting started

[Todd]

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David Both wrote:
> I have RedHat 9 and Mailman 2.1 (not 2.1.2). When using the RedHat command
> 
> # service mailman start
> 
> I get the following error traceback.
> 
> 
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "/var/mailman/bin/mailmanctl", line 524, in ?
>     main()
>   File "/var/mailman/bin/mailmanctl", line 319, in main
>     check_privs()
>   File "/var/mailman/bin/mailmanctl", line 274, in check_privs
>     gid = grp.getgrnam(mm_cfg.MAILMAN_GROUP)[2]
> KeyError: getgrnam(): name not found
> 
> Has anyone seen this and is there a fix? I could not find anything 
> resembling this in the archives on this list.

Really?  This has come up here often since the Redhat 9 packages are
basically broken.  QA was apparently on a drunken binge when they tested
this package.

I searched for "getgrnam(): name not found" on mail-archive and found
several hits.

    http://www.mail-archive.com/cgi-bin/htsearch?method=and&format=short&config=mailman-users_python_org&restrict=&exclude=&words=getgrnam%28%29%3A+name+not+found

Suffice it to say that you should see this bugzilla report for a solution:

    http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=89695

> Are there any specific docs about initial setup and configuration. What is 
> available seems pretty sketchy.

There are many fine documents covering this put together by the mailman
developers, but Red Hat's packager for 2.1 didn't include them apparently.
It looks like they did include the README files in the rawhide package which
fixes the problem of the mailman service not starting.

If you try that rpm and it still gives you grief, you're best bet is to
either roll your own rpm if you really want to have an rpm or install from
the tarball.  The latter is really quite painless.

- -- 
Todd              OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xD654075A | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp
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Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal.

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