[Mailman-Users] Porting from a 2.1.5 installation to 2.1.7

[Mark Sapiro]

Rob Tanner wrote:
>
>I am retiring a server running Mailman 2.1.5 and need to port  
>everything to a server running 2.1.7 (Fedora Core distribution).  Can I 
>take the lists directory and simply copy it from one server to another 
>(i.e., is the format of the various files the same)?  Is there anything 
>else that needs to be copied?


There are many threads on this in the archives of the mailman-users
list. The FAQ at
<http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq03.004.htp>
points to a few of them.

In short, for 2.1.5 to 2.1.7, you can move the lists/ directory and
Mailman will transparently update config.pck formats as necessary as
lists are accessed.

Note the following:

If you move the lists/*/request.pck files, you also need to move any
data/heldmsg-* files. OTOH, you can ignore any held messages on the
old server, in which case, it's better to not move the request.pck
files.

If you want to move archives, you can move the entire archives/private/
directory. You don't really need to worry about archives/public/ as
the symlinks therein will be recreated on the new system as the lists
are accessed, but if you want to move archives/public/, make sure that
you move the symlinks and not the directories they point to.

If you want to be selective about which archives to move, make sure
that you move both the archives/private/listname/ and the
archives/private/listname.mbox/ directories for each list.

You also have to deal with MTA aliases on the new server if the MTA
uses aliases for Mailman.

If the domain names for web and email will be the same on the new
server, that's all. If not, you need to run fix_url to update the
lists. Also, in this case, it might be better to just move the
archives/private/listname.mbox/ directories and rebuild the archives
with bin/arch --wipe so that the listinfo links in the archives will
have the correct host name.

If you are going to rebuild archives, it is good to first check the
archives/private/listname.mbox/listname.mbox file with bin/cleanarch.

See:

bin/arch --help
bin/cleanarch --help
<http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq04.069.htp>

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