[Mailman-Users] create a copy of current mailman lists

[Mark Sapiro]

Jeff DeReus wrote:

>I am interested in copying my entire mailman installation over to another
>machine to act as a mirror server in order to attempt an upgrade without the
>risk of breaking my current installation.  Is there one certain directory
>path that I would have to move over in order to attempt this?  or, can I
>install the latest mailman version and import mail list information in order
>to test?  is one preferrable to another?


If you're only doing this to test, you don't need to do much. Assuming
Mailman is quiescent with nothing in its queues, you will be
interested in some or all of the following directories.

lists/ - contains the list configurations, membership, etc. and
outstanding requests and held message info.

archives/private/ - contains all archives
archives/public/ - contains only symlinks into archices/private/ for
lists with public archives

data/ - contains current Mailman version, site password if any, list
creator password if any and actual held messages. Pre 2.1.5 also held
a global pending database which is per list in the lists/ directory
for 2.1.5 and up. Also contains other things like the master qrunner
pid that you don't want to move.

If you're not concerned about archives and the site password, you only
need to move the lists/ directory and maybe mm_cfg.py. You can do this
before or after the Mailman installation.

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