[Mailman-Users] Removing archived spam

[Mark Sapiro]

On 11/11/2017 02:28 PM, Hal via Mailman-Users wrote:
> 
> I also tried to log into the server and believe they're located
> somewhere here: /var/lib/mailman/archives/private/


That's where they should be.


> unfortunately I'm unable to access that location ("permission denied")
> for some reason,

It is not uncommon for /var/lib/mailman/archives/private/ to not be
readable/searchable by other than the web server user or Mailman's group.

Whatever is done, needs to be done by someone with write access to that
directory.

> so I'm contacting the server owner about that. But
> several years ago I did a lot of work cleaning up and importing archived
> messages from before I moved over to Mailman and made backups of said
> directory and it seems I have two main directories:
> 
> /var/lib/mailman/archives_BACKUP/private/LISTNAME/
> and
> /var/lib/mailman/archives_BACKUP/private/LISTNAME.mbox/


That's correct, but of course the back ups would not have any more
recent posts.


> The "LISTNAME.mbox/" directory contains a single "LISTNAME.mbox" file
> while the "LISTNAME/" directory contains a variety of files and
> sub-directories by month. I suppose I have to clean things up in both of
> those paths?

That depends. The easiest way to do it completely and correctly is to
edit the LISTNAME.mbox/LISTNAME.mbox file and replace the spam bodies
with "spam removed" or some such text and similarly for the Subject:
headers, but leave the edited messages there so messages aren't
renumbered when you do the next step.

Then rebuild the archives in the LISTNAME/ directory with Mailman's

bin/arch --wipe LISTNAME

(Mailman's bin/arch is what Dimitri referred to as mmarch)

You might review this entire thread beginning at
<https://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2017-November/082712.html>
including
<https://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2017-November/082722.html>
which refers you to <https://wiki.list.org/x/4030681> which discusses
all the options in detail.

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