[Mailman-Users] Mailman and Gmane ?

[John Fitzsimons]

On Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:28:57 +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
 
>John Fitzsimons writes:

Hi Stephen,

< snip >

> > >Gmane runs a news server, but that is not how it gateways mailing
> > >lists.  Mailman's Mail<->News gateway is irrelevant unless you or your
> > >ISP has configured it; Gmane can't do that for you.

> > Well, I configured it. Thinking that it needed to be set. Doesn't that
> > setting do anything ? Or does it only work with some news servers and
> > not others ? How does one know which news server that works with and
> > which news server it doesn't work with ?

>I don't know about cPanel, but this is what a vanilla Mailman provides
>as options for the news<->mail gateway:

>1. The hostname of the machine your news server is running on.     [       ]
>2. The name of the Usenet group to gateway to and/or from.         [       ]
>3. Should new posts to the mailing list be sent to the newsgroup?  No    Yes
>4. Should new posts to the newsgroup be sent to the mailing list?  No    Yes
>5. Forwarding options                                              [       ]
>6. The moderation policy of the newsgroup.                         [       ]

>AFAIK the gateway service of Gmane is *not* accessible from most
>Usenet hosts; 

Yep. But we are talking about newsgroup access here. Not usenet. There
are a number of newsgroup servers around the world that aren't usenet.
The GRC ones come to mind. 

>you need to go directly to Gmane for that.  

Agreed. Though I fail to see what that has to do with a news server
gateway. Surely the Mailman setting can only accept one news server
address at a time ? So whether the server is peering to
hundreds/thousands of other servers is surely irrelevant ?

>So unless
>the you configured Gmane as the news server (question 1) and a

I did.

>specific newsgroup to gateway your list to (question 2), 

I did.

>nothing will
>happen.  Since you don't have a newsgroup as far as I know, there's
>nowhere for mailman to gateway to.

>Note that question 6 is the policy of the newsgroup, *not* your list.
>No help there.

Yes, that is ideally where authentication should operate. Each
legitimate member should be allocated a valid login password.
Hopefully Barry will provide that capability if he can add a news
server option to Mailman.

> > >The gateway Mailman -> Gmane is the Gmane subscription.  If you remove
> > >that Gmane users cannot read posts to your mailing list.  The gateway
> > >Gmane -> Mailman is plain old email same as for any member or spammer.
 
> > >The only control you have is to use Mailman filters on incoming posts.
 
> > Could you please explain that a little ? In principle how would
> > filters help ? Wouldn't all posts from Gmane have the same added
> > headers ? Those that are from legitimate posters and those that 
> > aren't ?

>Yes.  What you're missing is that Gmane won't spoof other members, so
>if another member is there in From, Sender or envelope sender, you
>pass it.  (In practice, the only one that your users are likely to be
>able to set, or have set appropriately by their ISP, is From.)  If
>it's just Gmane, you don't.  *If* Gmane is in the Sender header, 

Could you please clarify those words ? " *If* Gmane is in the Sender
header". The sender header appears to be the list address.

There are so many headers I am totally confused as to which ones
can/should be filtered on and which ones shouldn't be.

Here are some of the headers as they appear when they arrive at the
mailing list. Are any of them able to be used in filtering ?

Return-path: <listname-bounces at mydomain>
Envelope-to: me at mydomain
Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=panda.hostingbay.net)
	by panda.hostingbay.net with esmtp (Exim 4.69)
	(envelope-from <listname-bounces at mydomain>)
	id 1NXp0j-0004O3-Kl
	for me at mydomain; Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:51:13 +1100
Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12])
	by panda.hostingbay.net with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256)
	(Exim 4.69) (envelope-from <gcf-listname at m.gmane.org>)
	id 1NXp0a-0004MT-1K
	for listname at mydomain; Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:51:11 +1100
Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.50) id
1NXp0W-0003h5-6a
	for listname at mydomain; Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:51:00 +0100
Received: from c114-76-0-218.eburwd4.vic.optusnet.com.au
([114.76.0.218])
	by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian))
	id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00
	for <listname at mydomain>; Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:51:00 +0100
Received: from gmane by c114-76-0-218.eburwd4.vic.optusnet.com.au with
local
	(Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00
	for <listname at mydomain>; Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:51:00 +0100
X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/
To: listname at mydomain
From: John Fitzsimons <me at mydomain>
Message-ID: <hqmfl5tcd0p6dl7q11j3hp7coltf9on2lj at 4ax.com>
X-Complaints-To: usenet at ger.gmane.org
X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: c114-76-0-218.eburwd4.vic.optusnet.com.au
X-BeenThere: listname at mydomain
Precedence: list
Reply-To: Computer Freeware Discussion <listname at mydomain>
Sender: listname-bounces at mydomain
Errors-To: listname-bounces at mydomain
X-ACL-Warn: {
X-Agent-Received: from aspects (gmane) (mail.mydomain); Thu, 21 Jan
2010 15:51:24 +1100

As I am an "authorised" poster the sort of filter that would be needed
that comes to mind would be something like...

DELETE  & ! From: {me at mydomain | member at hisdomain}

But I have no idea how that would need to be implimented in Mailman.

>then
>you don't need to do anything special, because From is checked first.
>Just moderate Gmane, 

Just moderate ?  I haven't done that before. Do I need to do more than
just set the Gmane subscription to "moderate" ?

>and warn your members that they need to post
>"From:" their subscribed addresses from Gmane as well as by mail.

Yes, I have already told them that.

> > Well, looking for "gmane" headers on a post gives me something like...
 
> > Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail
> > Approved: news at gmane.org
> > 	by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50)
> > 	by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian))
> > X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/
> > X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: ........
> > Xref: news.gmane.org .......
> > Archived-At: <http://permalink.gmane.org/listname>
 
> > I have no idea how any of that could help filter out posts that aren't
> > from legitimate subscribers.  :-(

>(Is that a post received via news? 

Yes, ALL headers are received via news ! All my members of this 
list want it that way. They are only interested in posting via a
newsreader.

> If so, it's little help, because
>the headers should be quite different from a mailed post.)

Okay, see the added info I provided above.

>We really need to see the From, Sender, and Resent-Sender headers, and
>the envelope sender on the mail received by mailman.  Sender really
>SHOULD be there in mail received by Mailman from Gmane.  From RFC 5322
>(the current Proposed Standard from email):

>   For example, if a secretary were to send a message for another
>   person, the mailbox of the secretary would appear in the "Sender:"
>   field and the mailbox of the actual author would appear in the
>   "From:" field.  If the originator of the message can be indicated
>   by a single mailbox and the author and transmitter are identical,
>   the "Sender:" field SHOULD NOT be used.  Otherwise, both fields
>   SHOULD appear.

>Here Gmane is functioning as a "secretary", and IMO should appear in
>"Sender", while your list member is the author, and should appear in
>"From".

From looking at the first set of headers above the list member does
appear to be in the From section.

>If not, and Gmane *isn't* in one of From, Sender, or envelope sender,
>then I don't understand how posts from unsubscribed addresses via
>Gmane are getting through, since IIRC you said earlier you have
>'generic_nonmember_action' set to 'Hold'.  Right?

Sorry, your terminology has confused me here. What do you mean by
'generic_nonmember_action' set to 'Hold'.  ?

I have setup the list as "Require approval". Is that what you mean ?

Thank you for your help. If you, or anyone else, can work out how we
Gmaners can stop "unauthorised" posters posting I am sure that there
will be very many appreciative Mailman/Gmane users.

Regards, John.