[Mailman-Users] Question about Mailman hosting service.

Wed Feb 19 14:56:22 CET 2014

These days there's no excuse not to simply provide each person a virtual 
host, which is what I do. The only "disadvantage" is that you need to 
have enough machine to host them, which these days is not hard to do. 
There is no longer the need to use something like cPanel to split a 
machine up for multiple hosts.

I provide virtual hosts to my clients with full access so they can do 
whatever they need on their machine and I don't have to worry about them 
affecting anyone else, and I can customize the VMs to suit specific 
needs (ie disk space, RAM, etc). I can even limit bandwidth etc., if 
necessary.

Farokh
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> Stephen J. Turnbull <mailto:stephen at xemacs.org>
> February 19, 2014 07:47
> Joe writes:
>
> > Since I am not an IT specialist I have to ask myself, why would he
> > feel so strongly about this ?
>
> Just because. What more reason does anyone need?
>
> I personally strongly disliked cPanel for a long time because they and
> their customers (the host services, not the users) dumped some of
> their support on us. Inadvertantly, I'm sure, but I don't cut vendors
> who don't publish derivative source much slack. (Just a disclaimer
> of personal bias, you needn't sympathize with me. Anyway, more
> recently they have been trying to work out how to be better citizens
> in the Mailman community. :-)
>
> > What problems should I expect to encounter ?
>
> Something that you need to think about, at least long enough to read
> the whole point:
>
> 1. Mailman sometimes gets wedged (at least, it has done so in the
> past, I'm not promising it will ever happen again, much less
> happen to you :-). When it does, often somebody needs to access
> the message queues directly, which you can't do without shell
> access (and probably shouldn't be able to do on a shared
> installation because you could trash somebody else's mail). This
> could indeed happen to you. Suppose it does -- I'll bet Brian's
> company will get it resolved withing hours in 99% of the rare
> cases when it does happen. (Ask him for actual details, I have no
> relation to or even real knowledge of his company -- I just like
> him because he's friendly and occasionally answers question here
> even if they don't seem like a way to attract a customer. :-)
>
> Would something that happens on the average once in ten years to a
> given list, that takes 24 hours or less to resolve, put your
> organization out of business? If yes, cPanel is out, otherwise,
> why not?
>
> I suspect your IT specialist buddy is a bit OCD about these things,
> and a one-hour delay would be enough to get him spelling in all caps. ;-)
>
> As a non-specialist, the following probably do *not* apply to you, but
> for completeness:
>
> 2. In high-volume situations, many admins prefer to use withlist, a
> command line script, for mass moderation. No shell access, no can
> do. This also can happen to you, if your list attracts specific
> attention from a bad guy.
>
> 3. If you have many lists, and need to make a configuration change
> to each of those lists, again withlist is your friend.
>
> 4. Certain customizations to the website require changing Mailman
> code because the page in question is fully-software generated (no
> template at all).
>
> 5. Custom Handlers can be added to the post processing pipeline, but
> only if you have access to the code. I have two special-purpose
> Handlers that I use for my own lists, and a third, used to
> integrate SpamAssassin with Mailman, is quite popular. (This is
> not the preferred way to use SpamAssassin, but it works for a lot
> of Mailman site admins.)
>
> There may be others I can't recall offhand, but they're similar. I
> think you can see that these are probably not major concerns for you.
> For most non-technical users cPanel is a good way to go.
>
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> Joe <mailto:joemailgroups at gmail.com>
> February 18, 2014 13:50
> Hi, Brian.
>
> Thanks for your reply. I will be calling you soon.
>
> I will not disclose the name or e-mail of the IT specialist but his 
> private message to me expressed his concern over the use of cPanel as 
> a tool for the management of Mailman.
>
> Here is an excerpt from the e-mail I received:
>
>
> Joe, unless you have COMPLETE "List Control", DON'T do it ! ! !
>
> If you think you HATE the "baby sitting" of current set-up, you don't 
> know/fully understand
> the full meaning of HATE ! ! !
>
> For over a decade I have prayed to "Hit the Lottery" as very FIRST 
> thing I would do is pay
> for Dedicated Server so I could have FULL control without the "Baby 
> Sitting" of cPanel ! ! !
>
>
> Since I am not an IT specialist I have to ask myself, why would he 
> feel so strongly about this ? What problems should I expect to encounter ?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Joseph.
>
>
>
>
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> Brian Carpenter <mailto:brian at emwd.com>
> February 18, 2014 13:36
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Mailman-Users [mailto:mailman-users-
>> bounces+brian=emwd.com at python.org] On Behalf Of Joe
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2014 1:29 PM
>> To: mailman-users at python.org Users
>> Subject: [Mailman-Users] Question about Mailman hosting service.
>>
>> Hello, everyone.
>>
>> 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 ?
>>
>> In addition, what problems should I expect to encounter in hosting my
> lists
>> with an outside Mailman hosting service ?
>>
>> Thank you in advance,
>>
>> Joe.
>> ------------------------------------------------------
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>> users%40python.org/
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>> users/brian%40emwd.com
>
> Hi Joe:
>
> I think we discussed your mailman needs a couple of times over the phone.
>
> cPanel is a webhosting control panel that is very popular (for good reason)
> among web hosting companies and it includes the use of mailman.
>
> cPanel is typically used within a shared hosting environment and I believe
> it has done a lot in getting mailman into the hands of many list users.
> Because of the nature of a shared hosting environment, typical mailman users
> would not have access to the mailman server itself in order to make any
> customizations such as searchable archives, etc. However my company hosts
> over a 1000 mailman lists on our cPanel servers and our list clients are
> very happy with the arrangement. But YMMV.
>
> If you have not required backend access before to your mailman server then I
> would think you will not have any problems utilizing a cPanel enabled
> mailman service. I would be interested in hearing some details of your IT
> specialist's reservations of cPanel and mailman.
>
> Brian Carpenter
> EMWD.com
>
> Providing Cloud Services and more for over 15 years.
>
> T: 336.755.0685
> E: brian at emwd.com
> www.emwd.com
>
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> Joe <mailto:joemailgroups at gmail.com>
> February 18, 2014 13:28
> Hello, everyone.
>
> 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 ?
>
> In addition, what problems should I expect to encounter in hosting my 
> lists with an outside Mailman hosting service ?
>
> Thank you in advance,
>
> Joe.
> ------------------------------------------------------
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