[Mailman-Users] Trouble with some messages being scrubbed

[Mark Sapiro]

Scott Race wrote:
>
>Would the workaround you describe involve setting:
>
>convert_html_to_plaintext = 1
>and
>filter_mime_types = [add html/text]
>?


Not exactly. the workaround may be to just add text/html to
filter_mime_types, but it depends if there is anything in
pass_mime_types. If you have the default setting of

multipart/mixed
multipart/alternative
text/plain

in pass_mime types, you will already remove everything that isn't
text/plain if you just turn on content filtering. Also, in 2.1.5, even
if both filter_mime_types and pass_mime_types are empty, meaning
nothing gets removed, a multipart/alternative part will still get
replaced by it's first alternative (this is a setting -
collapse_alternatives - in later versions, but in 2.1.5 it is always
done).

Thus, to do the minimal filtering that will avoid this bug, set

filter_content = 1
filter_mime_types = []
pass_mime_types = []
convert_html_to_plaintext = 0


>One other question about upgrade/new install - I have read that upgrading an existing installation is rather difficult and might involve downtime, so the preferred method is to bring up a new server and move the lists over.  Is that correct?


Upgrading from 2.1.5 to any more recent version is easy. It is much
easier than bringing up a new server and moving lists. There are
potential caveats regarding Python versions. See the FAQ at
<http://wiki.list.org/x/pYA9>. Other than that, it depends how your
original Mailman was installed. If from source, the upgrade process is
to run configure with the same options as before (can be found in
config.log if you still have the original) and make. Then if all went
OK, stop Mailman, backup your current installation just in case, run
make install and start Mailman. I've done this dozens of times on a
production system without problems. It only takes a few minutes.

Upgrading from a packege should also be easy, but the details depend on
the package.

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