[Mailman-Users] Mailman/qrunner dies after 50 weeks

[Brad Knowles]

At 8:17 AM -0400 2005-09-01, Tom Limoncelli wrote:

>                                                              I was always
>  impressed at how mailman needed so little maintenance (I previously ran
>  majordomo since around 1993, and moved to mailman in 2000).

	That's why I switched from Majordomo, although I think I made 
that switch a bit later than you did.

>                                                               It is one
>  of the few bits of software that I run that "runs itself" after
>  installation.  I'm currently using Mailman version 2.1.2.

	Note that there are many improvements with more recent versions 
of Mailman, and if you haven't applied the appropriate patch, there 
is a known security vulnerability in versions older than 2.1.6.  I 
would encourage you to look at upgrading, or at the very least 
ensuring that you've got the security patch applied.

>  Would it be worth it to do a "mailmanctl" every 49 weeks as a preventive
>  measure?  Is there a recommended way to automate this?  I'm concerned
>  that I might not remember to do it in July 2006.  I might be traveling then.
>
>  Is this a common problem with mailman?  Should I be concerned?

	Well, it's the first I've heard of such a problem, but I wouldn't 
be too surprised that there was some sort of a 48-52 week bug.

	We have had occasional reports of problems in the past with 
messages getting stuck and then cleared by a restart, but I haven't 
heard of anyone finding out any specifics regarding the underlying 
cause, and I haven't heard of anyone noting a commonality between 
uptime and messages being stuck.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

   SAGE member since 1995.  See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.