[Mailman-Users] Setting up Mailman with Apache on FreeBSD

[Odhiambo Washington]

On 7 June 2016 at 20:21, John Poltorak <karotlopj at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have read these instructions, and don't find them that straightforward -
> at least there must be some thing implied.
>
> It isn't very reassuring when it says this or that *may* be required. I
> suppose the instructions are more general than specific to my environment.
> I get a *Forbidden * error after adding this line to httpd.conf
>
> ScriptAlias /mailman/      /usr/local/mailman/cgi-bin/
>
> I tried both versions of setting permissions in the Directory
> directive, but it didn't seem to make
>
> any difference - I did restart Apache after each change. I'm sure it
> must be straightforward, but
>
> I haven't mastered it yet.
>
>

Hi John,

I install Mailman by hand. So here goes, assuming you have installed python
from the ports or using pkg and you are using recommended python version:


1. Download Mailman sources and extract. I also download the indexing+htdig
patch and apply that to the source then I run:
./configure --with-cgi-gid=80 --with-mail-gid=26    # gid 80 is www and gid
26 is mailnull (I use Exim as MTA). decide what is your GIDs for both
make install

Now mailman is installed in /usr/local/mailman

2. For Apache, you know how to install that, right.
    You need to include a configuration for Mailman, and you can use mine.
So at the end of my httpd.conf I have this line:

Include etc/apache24/Includes/*.cf

cd /usr/local/etc/apache24/Includes/ and create mailman.cf as follows
Please customize the ServerAdmin and anything to do with lists.FQDN to
match yours:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName lists.FQDN
  ServerAdmin karotlopj at gmail.com
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteRule ^/(mailman|pipermail|icons|htdig)/.+$ - [S=1]
  RedirectPermanent /htdig /icons/htdig
  Alias /pipermail "/usr/local/mailman/archives/public"
  ScriptAlias /mailman/ /usr/local/mailman/cgi-bin/
  <Directory /usr/local/mailman/cgi-bin/>
     Options FollowSymLinks ExecCGI
     AllowOverride None
     Order Allow,Deny
     Allow from all
     Require all granted
  </Directory>
  <Directory /usr/local/mailman/cgi-bin/admin/>
     Options FollowSymLinks ExecCGI
     AllowOverride None
     Order Allow,Deny
     Allow from all
     Require all granted
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Of course run apachectl configtest after this to ensure things are fine
with Apache.
For me, I run mailman web UI using SSL, but I am not including that here.
When the time comes, you can figure that out yourself or ask me in private:)

Now, you also need to create your mm_cfg.py
inside /usr/local/mailman/Mailman/ as documented. You can request mine too
but remember I use Exim and not Postfix and a few things will differ.

Oh, you need the configurations for your MTA. For Exim, we have a
transparent config to we do not create any aliases for a lists in our MTAs
alias file.

Last but not least cd /usr/local/mailman/bin and run ./check_perms -f

Feel free to discuss with me privately if you get stuck.



-- 
Best regards,
Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
Nairobi,KE
+254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223
"Oh, the cruft."