[Mailman-Users] Question about Mailman hosting service.

[Andrew Hodgson]

Joe wrote:

>In my attempt to find a Mailman hosting service I have received a message from one IT specialist advising me to avoid hosting services that utilize a cPanel. According to this specialist this is a bad arrangement and one that >doesn't provide me full control of my lists. Since I am not an IT specialist I don't know what a cPanel is or how this can be a problem. Can any of you enlighten me ? What is a cPanel, why can this be a problem and how would it >not allow me full control of my lists ?

I run Mailman lists for several charities running my own Mailman compiled from source with some modifications.  I do the work on the backend and if there are problems, I get support from myself or the list if I am stuck.  I manage other Linux systems and so it isn't a problem for me.  I don't want to pay the license to run CPanel on the servers, and that is the choice I made.

The CPanel system is a web based control panel which allows you to host amongst other things, a fully working Mailman setup.  Whilst the CPanel implementation is not standard as per the stock Mailman setup, it is arguably one of the most widely used versions of Mailman, and without it, I think Mailman would be far less used today.

I feel there is nothing wrong with the CPanel installation for most users, who want to create, manage and remove lists from their hosting domains.  Where the issue comes is with support, as only a CPanel specialist or CPanel themselves can really support the installation, as the Mailman community don't know fully what has been done to the installation to make it work with the CPanel environment.  It could also be possible for someone who is used to a stock Mailman installation to break the integration if they just go ahead and change stuff without forethought to the CPanel integration.  I myself am subscribed to several very high traffic lists who run Mailman under CPanel, and they have no issues at all that I know of.

My advice would be to look at the providers you have available, if some are using CPanel and you feel comfortable with the support they are offering, and the service fits your requirements, then don't let the fact they are using CPanel put you off.  It sounds like you would probably call out to someone else to support the system if it goes wrong anyhow.  If you have more bespoke requirements, and the CPanel integration wouldn't meet these (after talking to people on this list or companies who use CPanel), then go with a more tailored solution.

Thanks.
Andrew.