[Mailman-Users] disaster recovery help

[Chris Haumesser]

On 4/22/11 7:52 AM, Mark Sapiro wrote:
> If there are or were any config.db* files, they were left after
> migration from Mailman 2.0.x to 2.1.x and contained old data from
> before the migration.

There are no config.db files in /var/lib/mailman, they are only 
mentioned in the log.

> The above seems to indicate that there is a
> /var/lib/mailman/lists/.keep/config.pck, but it can't be unpickled for
> some reason. Is that the case?

Veritably so. It is an empty file (0 bytes).

> Given the above, I am amazed that the .keep list works at all, or is it
> some other list?

I never created a list called .keep, and indeed the problems are with a 
different list called 'camp', which is not mentioned anywhere in the 
error log.

I was assuming the .keep folder had something to do with mailman 
internals. After reading your message, I infer that is not the case, and 
now suspect it is perhaps a remnant from running fsck on the filesystem.

Interestingly, none of my actual lists seem to be missing their 
config.pck file.

Gotta love filesystem corruption. (New backup plan is now in place ... )

> If it is some
> other list, I suggest you move the /var/lib/mailman/lists/.keep/
> directory somewhere else (out of the /var/lib/mailman/lists/
> directory) ...

Seems reasonable, I'll give it a shot.

> That in itself may be sufficient to fix the digests problem with other
> lists (because cron/senddigests is dying on the .keep list and doesn't
> get to the others).

That could certainly explain the digests problem, anyway.


Thanks for your help!


-C-