[Mailman-Users] Cannot approve a moderation-held post

[Mark Sapiro]

On 05/09/2017 03:46 PM, Phil Stracchino wrote:
> I'm running Mailman 2.1.23 along with Postfix 3.2.0 and Apache 2.4.25.
> I have a held message from a mailing list member who was (at the user's
> request) placed on moderation some time ago after a Girl Scouts phone
> app stole her address book and spammed it.  I cannot approve the
> message.  I've tried three different browsers.  I've already
> successfully unmoderated the user, I select "Approve", click Submit All,
> and I just get dumped straight back at the held-message-approval page
> with the message still held.  I've checked all relevant logs and there
> are no errors being logged either by Apache, by Postfix, or by Mailman
> itself.  Everything else works except that I cannot approve this held
> message.  "Nothing's wrong, it just doesn't work."


Does Apache redirect http to https and if so is the 'action' URL on the
admindb page an http URL? If so, see steps 2 and 3 at
<https://wiki.list.org/x/17892007>. You also may be able to avoid this
issue in Apache by redirecting with a '308' status instead of
'Permanent', but this doesn't work well with Microsoft browsers.


> I also tried approving by replying to <list>-request with an Approve:
> <password> command, and that didn't work either.


In addition to mailing <list>-request with an Approve: <password> header
or first body line you must have 'confirm <token>' as the command in the
Subject. If admin_immed_notify is Yes, the token is in the third MIME
part of the notice. You can also find the token with the script at
<https://www.msapiro.net/scripts/list_pending> with the -m and -e
options, but tokens expire (by default after 3 days) and if the token is
expired or not there at all, this won't work.


> Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this problem, and how I
> can fix it and prevent future occurrences?  Except for simply never
> using moderation?


The most likely cause is the http -> https redirect dropping POST data.
For other possibilities, see <https://wiki.list.org/x/4030602>.

-- 
Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan