[Mailman-Users] Migrating list passwords when upgrading from 2.0.xto 2.1.x?

[Mark Sapiro]

Christopher Waltham wrote:

>I just migrated a Mailman installation (~800 lists, ~5000 users) from 2.1.5 on SPARC Solaris to 2.1.9 on Linux x86. In the process, it looks like existing list passwords have become corrupted.
>
>Is there an easy way to migrate those passwords across? I can't find anything in the FAQs, and really really don't want to have to give 800 list admins new passwords. :-(


I'm confused. Your subject says 2.0.x to 2.1.x, but above you say 2.1.5
to 2.1.9.

There should be no issue whatsoever with passwords in a 2.1.5 to 2.1.9
migration.

With a 2.0.x to 2.1.x migration, list admin and moderator passwords
will be lost. This is because the encryption algorithm changed, and
there is no way to decrypt the 2.0.x password and re-encrypt it for
2.1.x.

In Mailman 2.1, there is a bin/change_pw script which can be used to
generate new list passwords and mail them to the list owners - the
list owners will have to assign new moderator passwords if any.

The reason for this change is given in the following two paragraphs
from bin/change_pw --help.

Prior to Mailman 2.1, list passwords were kept in crypt'd format --
usually.  Some Python installations didn't have the crypt module
available, so they'd fall back to md5.  Then suddenly the Python
installation might grow a crypt module and all list passwords would be
broken.

In Mailman 2.1, all list and site passwords are stored in SHA1 hexdigest
form.  This breaks list passwords for all existing pre-Mailman 2.1
lists, and since those passwords aren't stored anywhere in plain text,
they cannot be retrieved and updated.


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