[Mailman-Users] Unable to get Mailman up and running with qmail/vpopmail

[DIGITAL FOR YOU - Alexander Schwethelm]

Hi there,

I've been trying now for almost 3 days and I am about to give up :-(

I tried to install using those tutorials

http://nav.bandersnatch.org/clues/qmail-vpopmail-mailman.html and
http://www.nerdworks.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=12

The second link doesn't seem to work today, so I will paste the tutorial at
the end of this mail as I kept a local copy.

Everything seems to run fine.  I am able to create lists, I can sign lists,
etc.

What doesn't work and this is of course the most important part, is any mail
to mailman.  Let's say I have a list mylist at lists.mydomain.tld and I send an
email to this address as a list user, the mail gets stuck in the qmail
queue.

So I am not even sure if those mails ever reach mailman in order to process
the mails?

Any help is highly appreciated.

Best regards,

Alex


PS:  Below you'll find the tutorial mentioned above.. Whatsoever I used
mailman-2-1.5 not 2.1.3!

How to set up the Mailman mailing list manager to work with the Qmail MTA

http://www.nerdworks.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=12

How to set up the Mailman (http://mailman.sourceforge.net/) mailing list
manager (MLM) to work with the Qmail (http://cr.yp.to/) MTA using
vpopmail to handle virtual users,
and Apache with dynamically configured mass virtual hosting.

The default install-prefix for Mailman is /usr/local.
Personally I really don't like to put things that grows in to /usr.
You can of course split the installation by using ./configure options.
In this HOWTO I change the install-prefix to /var.

This document assumes you have already set up a
DNS "A" record for lists.your.domain.
It also assumes a fairly good knowledge about using the shell.


1.

Mailman requires the mailman user, the mailman group and
the mailman install-directory to be present.
The following commands will accomplish this.

groupadd mailman
useradd -d /var/mailman -g mailman mailman

cd /var
mkdir mailman
chown mailman:mailman mailman
chmod a+rx mailman
chmod g+ws mailman


2.

With the user, group and directory in place,
we can start working with the sourcecode for Mailman.

Download the source from http://mailman.sourceforge.net/
I downloaded it to /usr/src.
Untar and enter the Mailman source directory.


cd /usr/src
tar zxvpf mailman-2.1.3.tgz
cd mailman-2.1.3

Read the documentation, but do not take the Qmail part of it
too seriously, some of it is dated, and it is a true mess
of solutions for different environments.

The mailman user is not a virtual user, so mail to Mailman
should be delivered as mailman.
The cgi-gid is the user that Apache run as.
Check in your httpd.conf for the right user. 

./configure --prefix=/var/mailman 
--with-mail-gid=mailman 
--with-cgi-gid=nobody 
--with-cgi-ext=.cgi

make install
cd /var/mailman
./bin/check_perms
./bin/check_perms -f
./bin/check_perms

After running check_perms with the -f switch,
it should return no problems.

Edit /var/mailman/Mailman/Defaults.py
At he top of the file set:

MailmanHome = "/var/mailman";
MailmanVar = "/var/mailman";
MailmanOwner = "postmaster";

in the Qrunner defaults section

DEFAULT_EMAiL_HOST = 'lists.your.domain'
DEFAULT_URL_HOST = 'lists.your.domain'


3.

This howto assumes you are running Apache with
dynamically configured mass virtual hosting.
If you are not using dynamically configured mass virtual hosting,
just skip this section.
Read more about dynamically configured mass virtual hosting at:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/vhosts/mass.html
It is areally nice feature.

mkdir -p /path/to/domain/lists/htdocs


4.

Configuring Apache for Mailman.

cp /var/mailman/icons/* /var/www/icons

edit /etc/apache/httpd.conf
Add the following inside the <IfModule mod_alias.c> section:

ScriptAlias /mailman/ /var/mailman/cgi-bin

<Directory "/var/mailman/cgi-bin/">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

Alias /pipermail/ /var/mailman/archives/public

<Directory "/var/mailman/archives/public/">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>


5.

Set up the cronjobs neccesary for Mailman.
The needed cronjobs are located in /var/mailman/cron/crontab.in
Set them up as the user mailman with this command.

crontab /var/mailman/cron/crontab.in -u mailman


6.

Configuring qmail to handle mail for lists.your.domain

Make mailman handle all mail to lists.your.domain by inserting
the following line to /var/qmail/control/virtualdomains.

lists.your.domain:mailman

Put the following line in /var/qmail/control/rcpthosts.

lists.your.domain

Copy /usr/src/mailman-2.1.3/contrib/qmail-to-mailman.py to 
/var/mailman/

Edit /var/mailman/.qmail-default and add the following line.

|/usr/bin/python /var/mailman/qmail-to-mailman.py


7.

Now we can create the Mailman site-wide list.
This is the list that password reminders and so on appears to
come from. 

cd /var/mailman
./bin/newlist mailman
passwd

A fairly good default configuration for the site-wide list
is found in /var/mailman/data/sitelist.cfg.
Configure it to your taste.

vi data/sitelist.cfg
Make your changes.

Run the following command to set the defaults.

./bin/config_list -i data/sitelist.cfg mailman

Use a webbrowser and go to
http://your server/mailman/admin.cgi/admin
configure to taste, but don't make this list public.
subscribe youself to the list.

More information for list owners at:
http://www.imsa.edu/~ckolar/mailman/


8.

making it all run.
start the Mailman grunner daemon with this command.

/var/mailman/bin/mailmanctl start

Make sure maimanctl starts at every bootup.
In Slackware, add the above command to /etc/rc.d/rc.local

restart qmail


9.

For dynamically configured mass virtual hosting,
in /path/to/domain/lists/htdocs, make an index.html document
redirecting to http://lists.your.domain/mailman/listinfo.cgi

10.

Set up a testlist, configure it, and subscribe to it
from more than one account and test it.
Remove the testlist when you are satisfied.


11.

Comments and suggestions are very welcome