Mailman 3 November 2014 - Mailman-Users

Editing Mailman's text files
by Pete Bell May 8, 2024

May 8, 2024

Hi. I'm a new member of this group but have been running an email list with Mailman for a long time. I am now setting a list up again and want to give a "look and feel" to the list which has more branding of my user group as a whole, and less of a Mailman-feel. I seem to remember that besides editing the public HTML pages, it is possible to edit the text files which Mailman automatically sends out for certain needs (such as 'approve.txt', 'adminsubscribeack.txt', 'invite.txt', and so on). A. Is this still the case? B. If so, where can I find them? (in case they've changed from the ones I have from long ago). C. Where do they need putting, so that Mailman can use them again? It's important that I should tell you that Mailman on my webhosts servers is a "server-wide" installation, and I don't get to edit anything which other clients to their servers need. This would be only for my own use, and as such I need to know where these files go in my own webspace, and how to get Mailman to use them instead of the default ones. I should also say that I have done this before, so unless the facility to do this has been ditched in recent years, I *should* still be able to do it ! Does Mailman perhaps look for these files somewhere in my webspace (which I have to give a specific name), and if it doesn't find them it goes on to find its default versions of these files? Thanks in advance for your help. Pete Bell, UK

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Running two list with same email prefix
by Andrea Cappelli Feb. 27, 2024

Feb. 27, 2024

Hi all, I'm running a mail server with Debian Lenny, MTA is Postfix and i will use postfix-to-mailma.py script to run list I would set up Mailman for running mailing list with same email prefix on different domains, obvious with different list names For example we have ml.domain1.com and ml.domain2.net, i would like to have LISTADDRESS LISTNAME tech(a)ml.domain1.com tech-ml.domain1.com tech(a)ml.domain.2.net tech-ml.domain2.net In this way i can have the same address on differente domains and Mailman (my version is 2.1.11) can distinguish between lists because the list name is different. The list name will be also used to access web interface, so we have http://ml.domain1.com/mailman/admin/tech-ml.domain1.com http://ml.domain2.net/mailman/admin/tech-ml.domain2.net Is possible to accomplish this task? Any idea?

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Hide list address?
by Ricardo Kleemann Nov. 17, 2023

Nov. 17, 2023

Hi, Is there any way to configure Mailman such that, for an announcement-only type list, when a message is sent to the list, the To: shows the member's address, rather than the list address? Some list software allows the ability to hide the list address itself, so that address is not advertised. I couldn't find any configuration specific to that.

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Add "sender's name/email" to BODY of mail as header?
by Mal Feb. 17, 2021

Feb. 17, 2021

I want all mails sent to the list to come from the list's email address... But, in this case, if the user forgets to sign their name at the bottom of their mail body, effectively the mail to the list is anonymous...! Is there a way to add the user name (or email address) to the top of each mail so that the mails have the name of the sender, while the mail itself comes from the list address? I have looked high and low for an answer, but noone seems to have the solution. Thank you! Mal

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Mailman CGI Error-Group mismatch error
by Wang, Mary Y Sept. 10, 2020

Sept. 10, 2020

Hi, I received the following error this morning. So I rerun configure again with the following command: ./configure --with-cgi-id=apache --prefix=/var/mailman. I'm still getting the same error. Is there any place that I can look for so that I can debug this problem better? Perhaps, looking at the config history file or something. Any other places that I can check the cause of this error? "Mailman CGI error!!! The Mailman CGI wrapper encountered a fatal error. This entry is being stored in your syslog: Group mismatch error. Mailman expected the CGI wrapper script to be executed as group "nobody", but the system's web server executed the CGI script as group "apache". Try tweaking the web server to run the script as group "nobody", or re-run configure, providing the command line option `--with-cgi-gid=apache'." Thanks Mary

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Mailman 2.1.18-1 not respecting add_virtualhost
by Chris Miller July 3, 2015

July 3, 2015

Hello, we recently updated our (vhost patched) Mailman installation from 2.1.14 to 2.1.18-1 (https://launchpad.net/~msapiro) in order to workaround Yahoo's recent change to their SPF policy that this version addresses. Virtual mailing list hosting worked fine up until this upgrade. Here is an example of our mm_cfg.py : VIRTUAL_HOSTS.clear() DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST = 'list.ourdomain.com' DEFAULT_URL_HOST = 'list.ourdomain.com' DEFAULT_URL_PATTERN = 'http://%s/mailman/' VIRTUAL_HOST_OVERVIEW = On add_virtualhost(DEFAULT_URL_HOST, DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST) add_virtualhost('list.customerdomain.com', 'customerdomain.com') If we change the default values above and run the below command, the available mailing lists move from the old default to the new. bin/withlist -l -a -r fix_url -- All add_virtualhost configuration lines are ignored. Since withlist is able to read the changes in our mm_cfg.py, this does not strike me as an issue with our configure options which were limited : ./configure --prefix=/usr/lib/mailman --with-var-prefix=/var/lib/mailman --with-cgi-gid=apache I am unaware of a method we can use to further debug this, such as a command that would effectively dump out Mailman's configuration options, thus validating if it is even reading the add_virtualhost configuration lines. -- Regards, Chris Chris Miller President - Rocket Scientist ScratchSpace Inc. (831) 621-7928 http://www.scratchspace.com

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Re: [Mailman-Users] Is there tool convert archived files/directories into a mbox file?
by Mark Sapiro March 2, 2015

March 2, 2015

On 05/10/2013 06:35 AM, Xie, Wei wrote: > > Here we have one customer to request migrating all old archived files of > mailing list ‘kinejapan’ under directory > /usr/local/mailman/archives/private/kinejapan prior to 2009 (as attached > file) to Yale university. Yale university IT guys needs us to create a > mbox file for these old archived file to be easy for them to run > command ‘archdo migration. > > > > I check there is no file kinejapan.mbox under directory > /usr/local/mailman/archives/private/kinejapan.mbox to match these old > archived files as attached. This mailing list was maintained by our > pre-mailman admin, who passed away 2011, so I do not know why the mbox > file was missing. If ARCHIVE_TO_MBOX is set to 0 in mm_cfg.py, Mailman will not create/update LISTNAME.mbox/LISTNAME.mbox files. > Do you know whether there is a tool/method to convert these old archived > files/directories as attached into a mbox file? Lots of information is lost if there is no .mbox file. You can do as well as anything with cat /usr/local/mailman/archives/private/kinejapan/*.txt > kinejapan.mbox -- Mark Sapiro <mark(a)msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan

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We're sorry, we hit a bug!
by Roel Wagenaar Jan. 10, 2015

Jan. 10, 2015

L.S. Bug in Mailman version 2.1.15 We're sorry, we hit a bug! Please inform the webmaster for this site of this problem. Printing of traceback and other system information has been explicitly inhibited, but the webmaster can find this information in the Mailman error logs. The above message shows up on the web pages, unfortunately the last log written to is qrunner, error is empty, so no info on what it is about. The last thing changed is the adres of the main pages. It looks like the mail-system is not affected, any idea what is going on? Would like to show some logging, but it simply is not there. -- Roel Wagenaar, Linux-User #469851 with the Linux Counter; http://linuxcounter.net/ Antw.: Omdat het de volgorde verstoord waarin mensen tekst lezen. Vraag: Waarom is top-posting een slechte gewoonte? Antw.: Top-posting. Vraag: Wat is het meest ergerlijke in e-mail? Why be difficult, when with a bit of effort, you can be impossible?

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Mailman 2.1.15 translations not quite right
by Matt Moore Dec. 31, 2014

Dec. 31, 2014

Hello, I run a mailman system for a number of mailing lists. Recently I've noticed that a number of our pages aren't fully translated, when I think they probably should be. The server is a Debian 7.2 (wheezy) server and Mailman is 2.1.15. Python is 2.7.3, if that's of any use. There's nothing obvious in the 'error' log in /var/log/mailman. Any other logs I could check? As an example: https://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/cienciaaberta You can see that the top is in English and the bottom is in Portugese (Brazilian). Can anyone give me any useful pointers as to what can be done to fix? My google-fu has rather failed me on this one. Thanks, Matt -- Matthew Moore Sysadmin Open Knowledge - www.okfn.org Skype - notmatt

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Re: [Mailman-Users] Archive merge and search
by Hal Dec. 12, 2014

Dec. 12, 2014

On 07/11/2014 19:42, Mark Sapiro wrote: > On 11/07/2014 03:52 AM, Hal wrote: >> For not allowing text/html [snip] >> But does the above apply to *all* archived postings, or does it only >> filter anything that comes in from now on? > > > It applies to all posts that arrive after you make those settings, buth > in the archive and in the messages delivered to the list. It won't > affect messages already archived or in the mylist.mbox file, even if you > rebuild the archive. That's fine, but good to know for later. So for any new messages from now on I want my list to work this way: 1) HTML formatted postings should be converted to plain text before reaching other members. 2) HTML formatted postings can retain their formatting for the archive (I believe the archive is in the HTML format anyway?), but if it only archives whatever is sent to list members I don't mind. The important thing is that members receive plain text messages. 3) Since many people have their email programs set by default to send in HTML these days I just want Mailman to do its filtering, then continue by sending the posting as plain text without any moderator request or alerting the sender. 4) I'd like to block all attachements (list members should only receive plain text files). 40kb is already set for Max_message_size (in "General options" within the list administration web interface) which seems to have worked fine (as far as I know). Furthermore I understand that Filter_filename_extensions (in the "Content filtering" section) in addition removes any attachements based on specific filename *extensions* regardless of their file size? I see exe, bat, cmd and a bunch of other filetypes I've never heard of (geared towards Windows/DOS users I suppose -I'm a Mac user) are listed, but I suppose I could block .zip and those pesky .vcf/.vcard and "winmail.dat" files the same way. When such extensions are encountered, are they just removed from the messages while the message posting itself is passed on to list members, or is the whole posting stopped for approval first? I'm thinking out loud here, so feel free to chime in for better ideas, but I'm thinking there are two kind of attachement groups which need different actions to be taken: Deliberate attachements: zip files, gif/jpg images etc. which a poster wants to share. The message/attachement should be stopped from reaching the list and an email sent to the poster with a "your message has been blocked. Please resend your message, this time without an attachement" type of message. Accidental attachements: winmail.dat, .vcf or .vcard an so on. Many users don't know (as with HTML postings) that their email program is set up to send this stuff. IMHO those attachements don't have anything to do with the actual content of their postings, so Mailman should just remove the attachement(s), then pass on the rest of the message to the list. Having said that, have I understood things correctly by setting up my "Content filtering" options as follows? (based on what you've said and what I've read here: http://wiki.list.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=4030684): Edit_filter_content: YES Filter_mime_types: (left blank) Pass_mime_types: multipart message/rfc822 text/plain text/html filter_filename_ext.: exe bat cmd com pif scr vbs cpl zip dat vcf vcard pass_filename_ext.: (left blank) Collapse_alternatives: YES conv_html_to_plaintext: YES Filter_action: DISCARD >>> A different obfuscation for email addresses would require source code >>> modification. I.e., there's no 'plugin' for it. >> >> Is this a feature that could be suggested for the upcoming Mailman 3? >> Perhaps an optional user-configuration through the web admin interface? > > > Mailman 3 uses different and 'pluggable' archiving. The archiver that is > bundled with MM 3 is called Hyperkitty. I'm not sure what address > obfuscation it does. Thanks. I'll look into it. >> Failing that, is there a way I could have the (currently private) >> archive have a filter before HTTP access? > > You could create your own CGI or other web process to access the > archives and present them any way you want. Being ignorant on the subject, what kind of pre-written CGI script should I try to find (i.e. "search engine to web archive gateway" or something like that?). You previously suggested htdig (http://www.htdig.org/) with your patches for allowing my visitors to search through both the Mailman archives and my website. Assuming this is a more ready-to-use solution than the other search engines out there, are there features I will be missing out on (e.g. the ability to use CSS and Ajax for making its search results appear more in line with the rest of my website) and is it still secure? I've read that malicious code can sometimes be entered as search phrases and damage the database if the search engine isn't using "parametrized queries". I've found other search engines (Nutch, Lucene, Solr, Tipue search, Xapian and Ajax live search) but I have no idea if they're suitable for my use and how well they work or how difficult they are to set up. Opinions from anyone are highly appreciated. Thanks. Hal

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