[Mailman-Users] Cloning a Mailman server to a virtual machine.
The Mailing List Server Admin
List.Server.Admin at unh.edu
Tue Aug 16 16:19:51 EDT 2016
Dear Mailman Cognoscenti,
We have Mailman (and ListProc) running on a physical machine which
needs to be decommissioned. Cloning the system to a virtual machine
(VM) shouldn't be a problem, but I am unsure about the tasks needed to
make a smooth transition. I've looked at several articles about
moving Mailman to new hardware, but a lot of the lower level service
details are not mentioned. Here's my first stab at what I think needs
to be done.
Mailman v2.1.20
RHEL v5.11
Semdmail v8.13.8
Apache v2.2.3
After informing the list owners of date/time mailing list services
will be unavailable, at the appointed time...
On the existing machine:
1. stop cron sudo service crond stop
2. stop Sendmail sudo service sendmail stop
3. stop Apache sudo apachectl stop
4. stop Mailman sudo service mailmain stop
5. stop ListProc su --command=/home/server/stop server
6. check mail queue sudo mailq
7. Wait ?? for machine to quiet down?
Clone existing system to VM.
8. shutdown old machine
9. boot VM clone
10. test email and lists
11. alert list owners
My concern is that a mailing list server is a very stateful beast, so
I want to avoid sending duplicate posts/digests, or accidentally
dropping new postings on the floor. Thanks for any insights you may
have to offer on the process.
--
Cordially,
the UNH Mailing List Server Admins
Bill Costa, senior admin
(603) 862-3056
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