Mailman

Mailman

	Note:
	It does not appear that this contrib works properly for virtual domains on SME 7.3+. This contrib functions as specified for the primary domain only. Additional work is required for this contrib to function properly for virtual domains. Currently work on progress to port it on SME8

Description

Mailman is free software for managing electronic mail discussion and e-newsletter lists. Mailman is integrated with the web, making it easy for users to manage their accounts and for list owners to administer their lists. Mailman supports built-in archiving, automatic bounce processing, content filtering, digest delivery, spam filters, and more.

Thanks to Gordon Rowell for developing the rpms.

Installation

yum --enablerepo smecontribs install mailman smeserver-mailman

You should now see a Mailman section under the Configuration section of the server-manager. But if you are not running the contribs compiled version, Mailman's management interface shows up with a CGI error message. It complains about group mismatch error between "www" and "apache". Login as root and apply the following workaround, which was suggested in bugzilla:6425:

id -u apache                  # should yield 48
id -u www                     # should yield 102
usermod -u 102 -o apache      # makes apache user and www user identical
groupmod -g 102 -o apache     # make apache group and www group identical

Configuration

File locations

Location	Description
/var/lib/mailman	location of mailman lists and archives
/usr/lib/mailman	location of mailman program files
/usr/lib/mailman/aliases	location of qmail alias files

Creating lists

Go to http://domain.name/mailman to create new lists.

If your SMEServer has multiple domains configured, do not prepend www. before the virtual domain.

For example: go to http:// virtualdomain.name/mailman to create lists for that domain name.

Keep in mind that no list can have the same name as an ibay or an user so choose the name carefully.

Note:

Always use http://domain.name/mailman to create your list, where domain.name is the exact domain you want to be used after the "@". Failing to do so, will lead to denial to relay error. As an example do not go to http://hostname.domain.name/mailman to create a mailing list for mailinglist@domain.name but to http://domain.name/mailman. see Bugzilla:5976 If you don't use a FQDN domain Name as described above, you can have an error like this one Error: Unknown virtual host: xxxxxx where xxxxxx is the hostname of your Server. see bugzilla:7837

Command line options

You can do a lot using the command line scripts located in /usr/lib/mailman/bin

For example

/usr/lib/mailman/bin/mmsitepass	will set the master password for all lists
/usr/lib/mailman/bin/list_members [listname]	will list the members of [listname]
/usr/lib/mailman/bin/list_admins [listname]	will list all admins of [listname]
/usr/lib/mailman/bin/list_lists	will list your mailling lists
/usr/lib/mailman/bin/list_owners	will list all owners of mailling lists or will list all mailling list

Running the script with --help will display the options available

Transferring Lists

You can transfer lists from another server and keep everything in tact. It's an easy process but the Mailman FAQ and info seems to be sparse and complicated. This simplifies everything.

OLD SERVER

First stop the mailman service.

/etc/init.d/mailman stop

Next, tar/zip up the lists.

tar -czvf /temp/mailman.tar.gz /var/lib/mailman

Next, transfer it onto the new server using scp or rsync:

scp -P <sshportnumber> /temp/mailman.tar.gz <newserverip>:/var/lib

or

rsync --progress -te "ssh -p <sshportnumber>" /temp/mailman.tar.gz <newserverip>:/var/lib

NEW SERVER

Change to the rpm location.

cd /install

Install the rpms.

yum localinstall mailman-* smeserver-mailman-*

Extract/untar/unzip the tar/zip file.

tar -xvzf /var/lib/mailman.tar.gz

The lists are transferred but the SME SERVER doesn't know about them. Let the server know about the list:

signal-event mailman-addlist <listname>

All your lists and lists' configurations should now be available at: http://domain.name/mailman

Personalization

	Note:
	Be warned that personalization is going to stress your server a lot as every mail is sent individually, not in batches as mailman usually do, so test this option before using in a production server

If you want to enable personalization in mailman (make every mail sent with the name of the recipient in the to: field as example or add the name of the user on the text) you do this:

1. Create the custom-templates tree, in case it does not exist already: mkdir -p /etc/e-smith/templates-custom/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py/
2. Copy the hostname file from the templates tree to the templates-custom tree maintaining the directory layout: cp \ /etc/e-smith/templates/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py/30hostname \ /etc/e-smith/templates-custom/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py/30hostname
3. Now we need to add one line to the custom template fragment to enable personalization: echo OWNERS_CAN_ENABLE_PERSONALIZATION = 1 >> \ /etc/e-smith/templates-custom/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py/30hostname
4. To refelct your changes we need to regenerate the file using the following commands: expand-template /usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py signal-event reboot
5. After the server comes back up again enter your mailing list admin and go to non-digest and in "Should Mailman personalize each non-digest delivery?" choose either yes or full personalization. Test both to see wich one do you like more... Also if you want to add a header with the person name enter in "Header added to mail sent to regular list members" this: Hello dear %(user_name)s and mailman is going to replace the string with the name the person used when he/she subscribed.

For more information

Mailman website http://www.list.org/ Mailman FAQ http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=all

Current Issues

• Check submitted bugs in the bug tracker under the contrib component "smeserver-mailman"
• Current mailman release is 2.1.9
• Bugzilla:2411: /usr/lib/mailman/aliases and /var/lib/mailman are not currently backed up

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