[Mailman-Users] Correct Mailman setup

[Mark Sapiro]

At Fri, 22 Sep 2017 17:57:36 +0200 luscheina at yahoo.de wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>> Hi all
>>
>> I have now read through the web pages Mark Sapiro proposed on Wednesday
>> - and I am more confused than before about all this. After contacting
>> our hoster (who told me that we are the only one of his clients who uses
>> Mailman and that he can't help me here), I ask the collective of all
>> knowledgeable people to help me configure Mailman (v 2.1.23 on cPanel)
>> so that there are the least possible problems.
>>
>> There are in total 5 lists:
>>
>> 3 of them are discussion lists for various subjects. All members are
>> allowed to reply to all messages, and all these replies should go to the
>> list / distributed to all members.
>>
>> 2 of them are announcement lists - members should normally not be
>> allowed to post anything; therefore all are set to "moderated". 
>>
>> All lists have members who use various mail domains, so I cannot be sure
>> about any odd behaviour of their mail servers
>>
>> All lists are more or less working


So far, I don't see a problem. For a guide to setting up announcement
lists see <https://wiki.list.org/x/4030685>.


>>, but every now and then some people
>> complain about something. The most annoying thing is that messages are
>> processed but then queued for up to one hour before they go out. The
>> mail system is on the same virtual server, and the provider has no idea
>> what to do. Otherwise the mail server does not ause problems, any
>> message submitted normally (not via Mailman) goes out nearly instantly. 
>> I would appreciate if a knowledgeable person could guide me through the
>> proper setup of these lists.


You are not going to be able to find the necessary information to
diagnose this issue which requires access to Mailman's logs and the Mail
Server logs which are normally not available to customers of a hosted
cPanel installation.

What I can tell you is there is nothing in normal list configuration
that would cause delays in outgoing mail. The most likely cause of these
delays is Mailman's 'out' queue being backlogged. There are multiple
posts about this in this list's archives including
<https://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2016-July/081121.html>.
There is also a FAQ at <https://wiki.list.org/x/17892002>.

One thing you can check is if posts are archived almost immediately even
though they aren't sent out for some time. This indicates a possibly
backlogged 'out' queue or possibly other delays in outgoing mail. If the
posts are not archived until they are ultimately sent out, that would
indicate the delay is in incoming mail.

It is also possible the outgoing mail server is throttling mail, i.e.
limiting the number of messages sent per hour or some such.

The bottom line is if the hosting service won't help you with this,
you're stuck. You might find
<https://wiki.list.org/DOC/Mailman%20and%20CPanel> of some interest.

If there are other issues/complaints, please describe both the current
and desired behaviors, and perhaps we can offer more advice.

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