[Mailman-Users] Need assist w/ VERP, Qmail and confirmation emails

[Mark Sapiro]

Leo A. Notenboom wrote:

>I've inherritted a mailman install, and we're seeing a LOT of
>failure-to-confirm which we believe is, in part, because of
>confirmation mail's subject line.
>
>Background:
>- Using Mailman version: 2.1.5
>- Installed via rpm (I believe) on
>- Linux * 2.4.21-27.0.2.EL #1 Wed Jan 12 23:35:46 EST 2005 i686 athlon
>  i386 GNU/Linux
>- QMail is on the server
>
>I start with the obvious FAQ:
>http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq04.052.htp
>
>And the "qmail VERP-enabled delivery handler" patch
>http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=300103&aid=645513&group_id=103
>
>However, I can't seem to get them to work and have been tearing my hair
>out.
>
>I *assume* that the Qmail.py patch simply gets placed into the Handlers
>directory (it was never explicitly called out as such). I then add the
>following lines to mm_cfg.py:
>
>DELIVERY_MODULE = 'Qmail'
>SENDMAIL_CMD = '/var/qmail/bin/qmail-inject'
>DO_QMAIL_VERP = 1
>VERP_CONFIRMATIONS = Yes
>QMAIL_LOG_SUCCESS = ( 'qmail', 'qmail postt to %(listname)s from %(sender)s, size=%(size)d, message-id=%(msg_message-id)s, success')
>QMAIL_LOG_FAILURE = ( 'qmail-failure', 'delivery to %(recipient)s failed with code %(failcode)d: %(failmsg)s')
>QMAIL_LOG_EVERY_MESSAGE = ( 'qmail', '%(msg_message-id)s qmail for %(#recips)d recips, completed in %(time).3f seconds')
>
>And restart mailman. I then get this series of errors:
>
>Jul 25 18:01:16 2005 qrunner(18328): Traceback (most recent call last):
>Jul 25 18:01:16 2005 qrunner(18328):   File "/var/mailman/bin/qrunner", line 270, in ?
>Jul 25 18:01:16 2005 qrunner(18328):      main()
>Jul 25 18:01:16 2005 qrunner(18328):   File "/var/mailman/bin/qrunner", line 217, in main
>Jul 25 18:01:16 2005 qrunner(18328):      qrunner = make_qrunner(*runners[0])
>Jul 25 18:01:16 2005 qrunner(18328):   File "/var/mailman/bin/qrunner", line 123, in make_qrunner
>Jul 25 18:01:16 2005 qrunner(18328):      qrunner = qrclass(slice, range)
>Jul 25 18:01:16 2005 qrunner(18328):   File "/var/mailman/Mailman/Queue/OutgoingRunner.py", line 56, in __init__
>Jul 25 18:01:16 2005 qrunner(18328):      mod = __import__(modname)
>Jul 25 18:01:16 2005 qrunner(18328): ImportError :  No module named Qmail

Is Qmail.py in the Mailman/Handlers/ directory and does it have the
same owner:group and permissions as the other *.py files in that
directory? If so, I don't understand the above error.

But, There is no need to use this Qmail.py delivery module at all as I
understand it. It seems the only reason to use it is to enable Qmail
to do actual VERPing of message sends instead of Mailman's VERP like
sending. If you're only using VERP to get friendlier confirmations,
the confirmations are sent one at a time anyway so there's no
advantage to having Qmail do the VERP. Also, setting
VERP_CONFIRMATIONS = Yes tells Mailman to do what it does with them
which isn't really VERP anyway because the 'token' in the envelope
sender is the confirm token, not the encoded recipient address.
Finally, it seems Qmail.py is based on Sendmail.py which is definitely
not recommended.

I suggest you remove all the above added lines from mm_cfg.py except for

VERP_CONFIRMATIONS = Yes

--
Mark Sapiro <msapiro at value.net>       The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan