[Mailman-Users] Help Newbie trying to get working..

[ghhalley]

> Thanks.. I am actually brand new... never even touched anything Linux
> before. I come from a Networking Background (mostly MS, Cisco and firewalls)
> and in the past I have had to setup network configs to work with Sun Servers
> running apache sometimes dibbling in the Sun's config files. But that is
> pretty much the extent of it. So I appreciate your help, it's comforting to
> know that there are people out there willing to lend a hand to a needy
> network guy.

Ahhh, That make sense.  You'll be surprised by how easy the really bad
problems are to fix in Linux.

> OK. So my big problem that took me all day was the silly little move of the
> mailman config file to the conf.d directory - thanks..

> Now I can access the pages over the network and feel like I'm making some
> headway.

> 1. Is the administration done entirely through the Web Admin? How do access
> and configure MailMan options?

You can do it both ways, except for the changes in the alias files.
Those you will need to hand poke.  I suggest the program emacs, if you
don't have a favorite way to do this.  The changes are really pretty
simple -- its a text file, with three pieces.

# Comment lines
and then the email address and its relay, typically in the form

George:   GHHalley at earthlink.net
which would send all email to George at holylandtrust.org to my email
account.

This gets a little stickier if you are using multiple domains and we
will not get into this in this email.

After hand poking the changes, you will need to type "newaliases" on the
command line.  You will get a statement back showing the db has been
updated.  And then you need to restart sendmail by "services sendmail
restart"  This will cause the changes to be received.

> 2. How do I change the @localhost.localdomain convention to specify the
> domain I want?

This is a little trickier question.  I'm guessing you might need to do
some more network configuration for the box.

Did you set a local name in the /etc/sysconfig/network file?  If not,
you need to set this up.  If I remember right, there is good
documentation in the RH 8 Reference Guide.  Red Hat has pdf and html
versions of it on their website. When I started learning Red Hat, I
used those guides alot.  They are not exhaustive by any means, but
they will get you going.  Then the man or info commands and the
readme's have almost everything else.

> 3.I do not want anyone to send email to this box - I just want it to be able
> to send out daily newsletters. I want the reply address to be a user on my
> Exchange Server --my corp mail server-- who can receive replies in his
> Outlook Inbox.

This brings up a major question of configuration.  Typically Mailman
uses confirmation emails for new subscriptions.  You will have to go
through the configuration files and turn off this capability.  Mailman
by default is not set up as a Newsletter list, but rather as a
Discussion list.  There are default settings, you will want to change
for it to work this way.  My primary purpose is also as a Newsletter
list.  FAQ 3.11 describes the basic changes you need to make.  I'm in
the process of implementing it.

> 4. That being the case (#3) do I need to setup external DNS with MX records
> for this server?

not sure.  I use DNS to direct traffic to my website and to route
emails to the server.  If you completely turn off in-coming emails and
you can get around the web traffic necessary, you can probably turn
off DNS.  But, I'm not an authority in this area.  You might want to
try a separate post with different heading to this list and the RH 8
list.

> Thanks for your help...

And on the second email...

> Ooh one other thing -

> 1. How can I test that Mailman is working with sendmail correctly?

You can check Sendmail, by making a change in the alias file to send
to you and then trying it.

Otherwise, you can set up your first list and send to it.

Or if you think everything is working, but don't get a response, check
FAQ 3.14

> Thanks all





-----Original Message-----
From: ghhalley [mailto:ghhalley at earthlink.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 5:45 PM
To: Sullivan, John
Cc: 'mailman-users at python.org'
Subject: Re[2]: [Mailman-Users] Help Newbie trying to get working..

John,

Comments are in-line with your questions.  BTW How Newbie are you with
Linux?  Its hard to tell from your EMails -- Sounds like you are brand
new to RH8, but do you have experience with other releases?  I will
modify my explanations depending on your knowledge.  For example, I've
played around on RH 6.2 box for two years as a part time job.

> Thanks for your info George..

> A few more questions.

> 1. I installed the MailMan package during the Red Hat Server installation.
> It look like it installed MAILMAN in /var/mailman/

     Good -- That is what I did, too.

> It seems to have done a few of the steps for me - create a mailman user
and
> Mailman group.

    Good -- and you should have a mail user and group for Sendmail and
    a Apache user and group for Apace.  All three users are needed for
    Mailman to run properly.  Three users are run to increase the
    system security.

> It moved some of the jpgs into my apache install -

    I never had to do that.  Evidentially, they were already there.
    (I hate having to move simple icons -- so I skipped it!)

> The apache installed a little different then I am use to and being a
newbie
> it has confused the hell out of me.

    Have you configured Apache before?  If not, there are a bunch of
    questions to resolve about how you do your webserver.  We may be
    able to do those questions over the phone.

    If you have configured Apace before, I was also surprised by Apache 2.
    I had time to learn it though as I was migrating the websites from
    my RH 6.2 box.  Overall, the configuration files are simpler.  The
    RH 8 install placed all of the Mailman config files in the file
    /etc/httpd/conf/httpd-mailman.conf file.  All you have to do for
    the setup, is move this file into /etc/httpd/conf.d/ directory.
    
    Oops, I did uncomment the one line which is suggested in the file.

> In /var I have a www folder - and in /etc/ I have what looks like all of
the
> configuration files.

    Correct.  I didn't dwell into the /var/www folder, but it is where
    you can find the apache documentation and where RH expects you to
    put CGIs and websites.

> I am assuming I need to edit the httpd.conf as I don't think the redhat
> install took it that far.

     The RH install provides the default configuration.  Works pretty
     well, but typically gets modified as you build web sites.

> What should my httpd.conf file look like considering the information above
> as to where my installs are.

     This is non-mailman specific.  So let's take it off the list and
     talk about this.

> 2. Also not sure if this a related issue but http server gui that comes
with
> RedHat freezes up on me everytime I try to edit the properties - any
ideas?

     Are you configuring from a desktop GUI?  I don't have experience
     with this.

     Questions like this are more appropriate for the Red Hat 8
     mailing list.  I am also a member of this.  The mailing address
     for this list is psyche-list at redhat.com I signed up for it
     somewhere on the Red Hat website.

> Thanks for your help..

     Keep passing questions, I'll answer as I am available.  For once,
     I can help someone!!  Yeah!

> john


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