[Mailman-Users] Help with Mailman and Sendmail

[Mark Sapiro]

David Abrahams wrote:
>
>Heh, and even if I do that, I don't end up with a
>/usr/local/sbin/mailman.aliases.


You have to create /usr/local/sbin/mailman.aliases with execute
permission and containing

/bin/cp /usr/local/mailman/data/aliases /etc/mailman.aliases
/usr/bin/newaliases

>It seems like something needs to
>tell newaliases about /etc/mailman.aliases, and the only thing I see
>in the instructions that could do it is a later step:


It is the

POSTFIX_ALIAS_CMD = '/usr/bin/sudo /usr/local/sbin/mailman.aliases'

That tells the process to run that file in order to update system
aliases from the /usr/local/mailman/data/aliases that the process
creates/updates.


>  3. We have to tell sendmail about the new alias file.
>
>  in /etc/mail/sendmail.mc find this line:
>  define(`ALIAS_FILE', `/etc/aliases')dnl
>  and change it to:
>  define(`ALIAS_FILE', `/etc/aliases,/etc/mailman.aliases')dnl
>  Run a make (or otherwise refresh sendmail.cf and then restart sendmail
>
>  Now when we run newaliases, it will rebuild both alias files.
>
>Am I missing something?  I feel like I'm groping around in the dark
>here.


Here's what happens:

1) You create /usr/local/sbin/mailman.aliases with execute permission
and containing

/bin/cp /usr/local/mailman/data/aliases /etc/mailman.aliases
/usr/bin/newaliases

This will actually be run later.

2) You put in mm_cfg.py

MTA='Postfix'
POSTFIX_ALIAS_CMD = '/usr/bin/sudo /usr/local/sbin/mailman.aliases'

What this does is it tells Mailman's bin/genaliases and list
creation/deletion processes to run Mailman/MTA/Postfix.py as part of
the process to deal with aliases. This in turn updates data/aliases (a
fixed file name) and then invokes POSTFIX_ALIAS_CMD to update the
system aliases. That command runs the script in
/usr/local/sbin/mailman.aliases (as root) to copy the aliases to
/etc/mailman.aliases (This is necessary because of point 1. in the
post at
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2004-June/037518.html>)
and run /usr/bin/newaliases to update Sendmail's database.

Now Mailman aliases are being automatically maintained in
/etc/mailman.aliases, but none of this actually happens until step 5.
of the above post's instructions.

3) You add /etc/mailman.aliases to Sendmail's configuration so Sendmail
will use that file.

You do the other steps as outlined in the post.

Does this help?

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