[Mailman-Users] Question about Mailman domain and OS X serverset-up.

[JRC Groups]

Thanks Brad and Mark for your helpful and detailed replies.

I have reached a point where I have the lists almost working but there are
some issues still preventing the systems from functioning in a way that
allows me to confident to launch these lists I wish to create.

Apple's support has been MIA at best so I have given up and decided to seek
other alternatives. Also, the numerous individuals I have spoken with at
Apple were clearly (1) not interested in making any improvements or fixing
the current issues with the version of Mailman that ships with OS X Server
and (2) didn't know any more about it than I do (which is quite embarrassing
considering they are part of the company's business support department).

I can't imagine that there is anything other than some minor set-up issues
that need to be corrected with my system. After all, I am sending and
receiving e-mails and the lists are functional (to an extent anyway) as they
send and receive messages. However, as I stated above, I don't want to
launch the lists only to attract subscribers and then find out in a short
while that Mailman has stopped working because something with my system
wasn't set-up properly.

I also can't imagine that it would be too difficult to install a new version
of Mailman and manage it using its browser-based interface while ignoring
Apple's System Administrator tool for this specific task.

Brad, since you have this much experience with OS X Server would you be
interested in helping me with my problem ? In case you are, please contact
me off-list so that we can discuss it. I believe you should be able to
connect remotely, right ? In case you are not interested, would you
recommend me someone who is knowledgeable on both OS X Server and Mailman ?
I have contacted numerous Apple consultants but couldn't find a single one
who had any experience with Mailman.

Thanks again for your helpful replies.

Best regards,

Joe

---------------

On 3/30/11 5:36 PM, "Brad Knowles" <brad at shub-internet.org> wrote:

> On Mar 30, 2011, at 6:15 PM, JRC Groups wrote:
> 
>> Is there anyone on the list who is familiar with both OS X Server and
>> Mailman to help with this problem ? I am willing to pay a consultation fee
>> to someone who can connect to my server remotely and help solve this issue.
> 
> I've been an Apple consultant, at least part-time.  I came within a hairs
> breadth of doing that job full-time for a local Apple VAR.  I've got all the
> PDF versions of all the official Apple documentation on Mac OS X and Mac OS X
> Server, as well as PDF versions of the good 3rd party books on the subject.
> And I've been a professional Unix system administrator and consultant for over
> twenty years.
> 
> The guy who used to run lists.apple.com was involved in the development and
> support of Mailman long before I came along, and has more experience in the
> business than I do.
> 
> I don't mean to sound pessimistic or to rain on your parade, but in both
> cases, the solution was to blow away the stuff that Apple ships, and to
> install the "real deal" code as downloaded from list.org.
> 
> 
> The Mailman project is freely available open source (under a GNU license, no
> less), and the support we provide is best effort.  There is no commercial
> version of Mailman that we sell or officially support.  Anyone else that
> includes Mailman as part of a commercial product or service that they sell,
> should include with that a full after-sales support staff.
> 
> 
> Note that there isn't going to be a separate "Server" edition of Mac OS X
> "Lion".
> 
> No one seems to know if this means that all the stuff that the "Server"
> edition used to include will now be available to everyone, and that all the
> people who developed the "Server" edition of Mac OS X have been transitioned
> over to the mainline code development team, or if that means that a lot of
> products and services will get thrown out the door as Apple re-focuses
> exclusively on the retail/home user market.
> 
> But that is certainly something that you should keep in mind as you look
> towards solutions in this space.
> 
> --
> Brad Knowles <brad at shub-internet.org>
> LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu>
>