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GNU Mailman - Installation Manual

   Barry Warsaw

   barry(at)python.org

   Release 2.1
   May 30, 2005

                                 Front Matter

  Abstract:

   This document describes how to install GNU Mailman on a POSIX-based
   system such as Unix, MacOSX, or GNU/Linux. It will cover basic
   installation instructions, as well as guidelines for integrating
   Mailman with your web and mail servers.

   The GNU Mailman website is at http://www.list.org

                          1 Installation Requirements

   GNU Mailman works on most POSIX-based systems such as Unix, MacOSX, or
   GNU/Linux. It does not currently work on Windows. You must have a mail
   server that you can send messages to, and a web server that supports
   the CGI/1.1 API. Apache makes a fine choice for web server, and mail
   servers such as Postfix, Exim, Sendmail, and qmail should work just
   fine.

   To install Mailman from source, you will need an ANSI C compiler to
   build Mailman's security wrappers. The GNU C compiler gcc 2.8.1 or
   later is known to work well.

   You must have the Python interpreter installed somewhere on your
   system. Mailman 2.1 requires Python 2.1 or newer, although Python 2.3
   or newer is recommended.

                             2 Set up your system

   Before installing Mailman, you need to prepare your system by adding
   certain users and groups. You will need to have root privileges to
   perform the steps in this section.

2.1 Add the group and user

   Mailman requires a unique user and group name which will own its
   files, and under which its processes will run. Mailman's basic
   security is based on group ownership permissions, so it's important to
   get this step right^1. Typically, you will add a new user and a new
   group, both called mailman. The mailman user must be a member of the
   mailman group. Mailman will be installed under the mailman user and
   group, with the set-group-id (setgid) bit enabled.

   If these names are already in use, you can choose different user and
   group names, as long as you remember these when you run configure. If
   you choose a different unique user name, you will have to specify this
   with configure's --with-username option, and if you choose a different
   group name, you will have to specify this with configure's
   --with-groupname option.

   On Linux systems, you can use the following commands to create these
   accounts. Check your system's manual pages for details:

    % groupadd mailman
    % useradd -c''GNU Mailman'' -s /no/shell -d /no/home -g mailman mailman

2.2 Create the installation directory

   Typically, Mailman is installed into a single directory, which
   includes both the Mailman source code and the run-time list and
   archive data. It is possible to split the static program files from
   the variable data files and install them in separate directories. This
   section will describe the available options.

   The default is to install all of Mailman to /usr/local/mailman^2. You
   can change this base installation directory (referred to here as
   $prefix) by specifying the directory with the --prefix configure
   option. If you're upgrading from a previous version of Mailman, you
   may want to use the --prefix option unless you move your mailing
   lists.

   Warning: You cannot install Mailman on a filesystem that is mounted
   with the nosuid option. This will break Mailman, which relies on
   setgid programs for its security. If this describes your environment,
   simply install Mailman in a location that allows setgid programs.

   Make sure the installation directory is set to group mailman (or
   whatever you're going to specify with --with-groupname) and has the
   setgid bit set^3. You probably also want to guarantee that this
   directory is readable and executable by everyone. For example, these
   shell commands will accomplish this:

    % cd $prefix
    % chgrp mailman .
    % chmod a+rx,g+ws .

   You are now ready to configure and install the Mailman software.

                          3 Build and install Mailman

3.1 Run configure

   Before you can install Mailman, you must run configure to set various
   installation options your system might need.

   Note: Take special note of the --with-mail-gid and --with-cgi-gid
   options below. You will probably need to use these.

   You should not be root while performing the steps in this section. Do
   them under your own login, or whatever account you typically use to
   install software. You do not need to do these steps as user mailman,
   but you could. However, make sure that the login used is a member of
   the mailman group as that that group has write permissions to the
   $prefix directory made in the previous step. You must also have
   permission to create a setgid file in the file system where it resides
   (NFS and other mounts can be configured to inhibit setgid settings).

   If you've installed other GNU software, you should be familiar with
   the configure script. Usually you can just cd to the directory you
   unpacked the Mailman source tarball into, and run configure with no
   arguments:

  % cd mailman-<version>
  % ./configure
  % make install

   The following options allow you to customize your Mailman
   installation.

   --prefix=dir
          Standard GNU configure option which changes the base directory
          that Mailman is installed into. By default $prefix is
          /usr/local/mailman. This directory must already exist, and be
          set up as described in 2.2.

   --exec-prefix=dir
          Standard GNU configure option which lets you specify a
          different installation directory for architecture dependent
          binaries.

   --with-var-prefix=dir
          Store mutable data under dir instead of under the $prefix or
          $exec_prefix. Examples of such data include the list archives
          and list settings database.

   --with-python=/path/to/python
          Specify an alternative Python interpreter to use for the
          wrapper programs. The default is to use the interpreter found
          first on your shell's $PATH.

   --with-username=username-or-uid
          Specify a different username than mailman. The value of this
          option can be an integer user id or a user name. Be sure your
          $prefix directory is owned by this user.

   --with-groupname=groupname-or-gid
          Specify a different groupname than mailman. The value of this
          option can be an integer group id or a group name. Be sure your
          $prefix directory is group-owned by this group.

   --with-mail-gid=group-or-groups
          Specify an alternative group for running scripts via the mail
          wrapper. group-or-groups can be a list of one or more integer
          group ids or symbolic group names. The first value in the list
          that resolves to an existing group is used. By default, the
          value is the list mailman, other, mail, and daemon.

          Note: This is highly system dependent and you must get this
          right, because the group id is compiled into the mail wrapper
          program for added security. On systems using sendmail, the
          sendmail.cf configuration file designates the group id of
          sendmail processes using the DefaultUser option. (If commented
          out, it still may be indicating the default...)

          Check your mail server's documentation and configuration files
          to find the right value for this switch.

   --with-cgi-gid=group-or-groups
          Specify an alternative group for running scripts via the CGI
          wrapper. group-or-groups can be a list of one or more integer
          group ids or symbolic group names. The first value in the list
          that resolves to an existing group is used. By default, the
          value is the the list www, www-data, and nobody.

          Note: The proper value for this is dependent on your web server
          configuration. You must get this right, because the group id is
          compiled into the CGI wrapper program for added security, and
          no Mailman CGI scripts will run if this is incorrect.

          If you're using Apache, check the values for the Group option
          in your httpd.conf file.

   --with-cgi-ext=extension
          Specify an extension for cgi-bin programs. The CGI wrappers
          placed in $prefix/cgi-bin will have this extension (some web
          servers require an extension). extension must include the
          leading dot.

   --with-mailhost=hostname
          Specify the fully qualified host name part for outgoing email.
          After the installation is complete, this value can be overriden
          in $prefix/Mailman/mm_cfg.py.

   --with-urlhost=hostname
          Specify the fully qualified host name part of urls. After the
          installation is complete, this value can be overriden in
          $prefix/Mailman/mm_cfg.py.

   --with-gcc=no
          Don't use gcc, even if it is found. In this case, cc must be
          found on your $PATH.

3.2 Make and install

   Once you've run configure, you can simply run make, then make install
   to build and install Mailman.

                           4 Check your installation

   After you've run make install, you should check that your installation
   has all the correct permissions and group ownerships by running the
   check_perms script. First change to the installation (i.e. $prefix)
   directory, then run the bin/check_perms program. Don't try to run
   bin/check_perms from the source directory; it will only run from the
   installation directory.

   If this reports no problems, then it's very likely <wink> that your
   installation is set up correctly. If it reports problems, then you can
   either fix them manually, re-run the installation, or use
   bin/check_perms to fix the problems (probably the easiest solution):

     * You need to become the user that did the installation, and that
       owns all the files in $prefix, or root.
     * Run bin/check_perms -f
     * Repeat previous step until no more errors are reported!

   Warning: If you're running Mailman on a shared multiuser system, and
   you have mailing lists with private archives, you may want to hide the
   private archive directory from other users on your system. In that
   case, you should drop the other execute permission (o-x) from the
   archives/private directory. However, the web server process must be
   able to follow the symbolic link in public directory, otherwise your
   public Pipermail archives will not work. To set this up, become root
   and run the following commands:

# cd <prefix>/archives
# chown <web-server-user> private
# chmod o-x private

   You need to know what user your web server runs as. It may be www,
   apache, httpd or nobody, depending on your server's configuration.

                           5 Set up your web server

   Congratulations! You've installed the Mailman software. To get
   everything running you need to hook Mailman up to both your web server
   and your mail system.

   If you plan on running your mail and web servers on different
   machines, sharing Mailman installations via NFS, be sure that the
   clocks on those two machines are synchronized closely. You might take
   a look at the file Mailman/LockFile.py; the constant CLOCK_SLOP helps
   the locking mechanism compensate for clock skew in this type of
   environment.

   This section describes some of the things you need to do to connect
   Mailman's web interface to your web server. The instructions here are
   somewhat geared toward the Apache web server, so you should consult
   your web server documentation for details.

   You must configure your web server to enable CGI script permission in
   the $prefix/cgi-bin to run CGI scripts. The line you should add might
   look something like the following, with the real absolute directory
   substituted for $prefix, of course:

    Exec        /mailman/*      $prefix/cgi-bin/*

   or:

    ScriptAlias /mailman/       $prefix/cgi-bin/

   Warning: You want to be very sure that the user id under which your
   CGI scripts run is not in the mailman group you created above,
   otherwise private archives will be accessible to anyone.

   Copy the Mailman, Python, and GNU logos to a location accessible to
   your web server. E.g. with Apache, you've usually got an icons
   directory that you can drop the images into. For example:

    % cp $prefix/icons/*.{jpg,png} /path/to/apache/icons

   You then want to add a line to your $prefix/Mailman/mm_cfg.py file
   which sets the base URL for the logos. For example:

  IMAGE_LOGOS = '/images/'

   The default value for IMAGE_LOGOS is /icons/. Read the comment in
   Defaults.py.in for details.

   Configure your web server to point to the Pipermail public mailing
   list archives. For example, in Apache:

    Alias   /pipermail/     $varprefix/archives/public/

   where $varprefix is usually $prefix unless you've used the
   --with-var-prefix option to configure. Also be sure to configure your
   web server to follow symbolic links in this directory, otherwise
   public Pipermail archives won't be accessible. For Apache users,
   consult the FollowSymLinks option.

   If you're going to be supporting internationalized public archives,
   you will probably want to turn off any default charset directive for
   the Pipermail directory, otherwise your multilingual archive pages
   won't show up correctly. Here's an example for Apache, based on the
   standard installation directories:

    <Directory "/usr/local/mailman/archives/public/">
        AddDefaultCharset Off
    </Directory>

   Now restart your web server.

                           6 Set up your mail server

   This section describes some of the things you need to do to connect
   Mailman's email interface to your mail server. The instructions here
   are different for each mail server; if your mail server is not
   described in the following subsections, try to generalize from the
   existing documentation, and consider contributing documentation
   updates to the Mailman developers.

6.1 Using the Postfix mail server

   Mailman should work pretty much out of the box with a standard Postfix
   installation. It has been tested with various Postfix versions up to
   and including Postfix 2.1.5.

   By default, Postfix treats -owner and -request addresses specially.
   Since you want Postfix to deliver such messages to Mailman, you should
   turn off this option by adding this to your main.cf file:

    owner_request_special = no

   In order to support Mailman's optional VERP delivery, you will want to
   disable luser_relay (the default) and you will want to set
   recipient_delimiter for extended address semantics. You should comment
   out any luser_relay value in your main.cf and just go with the
   defaults. Also, add this to your main.cf file:

    recipient_delimiter = +

   Using "+" as the delimiter works well with the default values for
   VERP_FORMAT and VERP_REGEXP in Defaults.py.

   When attempting to deliver a message to a non-existent local address,
   Postfix may return a 450 error code. Since this is a transient error
   code, Mailman will continue to attempt to deliver the message for
   DELIVERY_RETRY_PERIOD - 5 days by default. You might want to set
   Postfix up so that it returns permanent error codes for non-existent
   local users by adding the following to your main.cf file:

    unknown_local_recipient_reject_code = 550

   Finally, if you are using Postfix-style virtual domains, read the
   section on virtual domain support below.

  6.1.1 Integrating Postfix and Mailman

   You can integrate Postfix and Mailman such that when new lists are
   created, or lists are removed, Postfix's alias database will be
   automatically updated. The following are the steps you need to take to
   make this work.

   In the description below, we assume that you've installed Mailman in
   the default location, i.e. /usr/local/mailman. If that's not the case,
   adjust the instructions according to your use of configure's --prefix
   and --with-var-prefix options.

   Note: If you are using virtual domains and you want Mailman to honor
   your virtual domains, read the 6.1 section below first!

     * Add this to the bottom of the $prefix/Mailman/mm_cfg.py file:
        MTA = 'Postfix'
       The MTA variable names a module in the Mailman/MTA directory which
       contains the mail server-specific functions to be executed when a
       list is created or removed.
     * Look at the Defaults.py file for the variables POSTFIX_ALIAS_CMD
       and POSTFIX_MAP_CMD command. Make sure these point to your
       postalias and postmap programs respectively. Remember that if you
       need to make changes, do it in mm_cfg.py.
     * Run the bin/genaliases script to initialize your aliases file.
        % cd /usr/local/mailman
        % bin/genaliases

       Make sure that the owner of the data/aliases and data/aliases.db
       file is mailman and that the group owner for those files is
       mailman, or whatever user and group you used in the configure
       command:
        % su
        % chown mailman:mailman data/aliases*

     * Hack your Postfix's main.cf file to include the following path in
       your alias_maps variable:
          /usr/local/mailman/data/aliases
       Note that there should be no trailing .db. Do not include this in
       your alias_database variable. This is because you do not want
       Postfix's newaliases command to modify Mailman's aliases.db file,
       but you do want Postfix to consult aliases.db when looking for
       local addresses.
       You probably want to use a hash: style database for this entry.
       Here's an example:
        alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/aliases,
            hash:/usr/local/mailman/data/aliases
     * When you configure Mailman, use the --with-mail-gid=mailman
       switch; this will be the default if you configured Mailman after
       adding the mailman owner. Because the owner of the aliases.db file
       is mailman, Postfix will execute Mailman's wrapper program as uid
       and gid mailman.

   That's it! One caveat: when you add or remove a list, the aliases.db
   file will updated, but it will not automatically run postfix reload.
   This is because you need to be root to run this and suid-root scripts
   are not secure. The only effect of this is that it will take about a
   minute for Postfix to notice the change to the aliases.db file and
   update its tables.

  6.1.2 Virtual domains

   Postfix 2.0 supports ``virtual alias domains'', essentially what used
   to be called ``Postfix-style virtual domains'' in earlier Postfix
   versions. To make virtual alias domains work with Mailman, you need to
   do some setup in both Postfix and Mailman. Mailman will write all
   virtual alias mappings to a file called, by default,
   /usr/local/mailman/data/virtual-mailman. It will also use postmap to
   create the virtual-mailman.db file that Postfix will actually use.

   First, you need to set up the Postfix virtual alias domains as
   described in the Postfix documentation (see Postfix's virtual(5)
   manpage). Note that it's your responsibility to include the
   virtual-alias.domain anything line as described manpage; Mailman will
   not include this line in virtual-mailman. You are highly encouraged to
   make sure your virtual alias domains are working properly before
   integrating with Mailman.

   Next, add a path to Postfix's virtual_alias_maps variable, pointing to
   the virtual-mailman file, e.g.:

    virtual_alias_maps = <your normal virtual alias files>,
        hash:/usr/local/mailman/data/virtual-mailman

   assuming you've installed Mailman in the default location. If you're
   using an older version of Postfix which doesn't have the
   virtual_alias_maps variable, use the virtual_maps variable instead.

   Next, in your mm_cfg.py file, you will want to set the variable
   POSTFIX_STYLE_VIRTUAL_DOMAINS to the list of virtual domains that
   Mailman should update. This may not be all of the virtual alias
   domains that your Postfix installation supports! The values in this
   list will be matched against the host_name attribute of mailing lists
   objects, and must be an exact match.

   Here's an example. Say that Postfix is configured to handle the
   virtual domains dom1.ain, dom2.ain, and dom3.ain, and further that in
   your main.cf file you've got the following settings:

    myhostname = mail.dom1.ain
    mydomain = dom1.ain
    mydestination = $myhostname, localhost.$mydomain
    virtual_alias_maps =
        hash:/some/path/to/virtual-dom1,
        hash:/some/path/to/virtual-dom2,
        hash:/some/path/to/virtual-dom2

   If in your virtual-dom1 file, you've got the following lines:

    dom1.ain  IGNORE
    @dom1.ain @mail.dom1.ain

   this tells Postfix to deliver anything addressed to dom1.ain to the
   same mailbox at mail.dom1.com, its default destination.

   In this case you would not include dom1.ain in
   POSTFIX_STYLE_VIRTUAL_DOMAINS because otherwise Mailman will write
   entries for mailing lists in the dom1.ain domain as

    mylist@dom1.ain         mylist
    mylist-request@dom1.ain mylist-request
    # and so on...

   The more specific entries trump your more general entries, thus
   breaking the delivery of any dom1.ain mailing list.

   However, you would include dom2.ain and dom3.ain in mm_cfg.py:

    POSTFIX_STYLE_VIRTUAL_DOMAINS = ['dom2.ain', 'dom3.ain']

   Now, any list that Mailman creates in either of those two domains,
   will have the correct entries written to
   /usr/local/mailman/data/virtual-mailman.

   As above with the data/aliases* files, you want to make sure that both
   data/virtual-mailman and data/virtual-mailman.db are user and group
   owned by mailman.

  6.1.3 An alternative approach

   Fil fil@rezo.net has an alternative approach based on virtual maps and
   regular expressions, as described at:

     * (French) http://listes.rezo.net/comment.php
     * (English) http://listes.rezo.net/how.php

   This is a good (and simpler) alternative if you don't mind exposing an
   additional hostname in the domain part of the addresses people will
   use to contact your list. I.e. if people should use
   mylist@lists.dom.ain instead of mylist@dom.ain.

6.2 Using the Exim mail server

   Note: This section is derived from Nigel Metheringham's ``HOWTO -
   Using Exim and Mailman together'', which covers Mailman 2.0.x and Exim
   3. It has been updated to cover Mailman 2.1 and Exim 4. The original
   document is here: http://www.exim.org/howto/mailman.html.

   There is no Mailman configuration needed other than the standard
   options detailed in the Mailman install documentation. The Exim
   configuration is transparent to Mailman. The user and group settings
   for Mailman must match those in the config fragments given below.

  6.2.1 Exim configuration

   The Exim configuration is built so that a list created within Mailman
   automatically appears to Exim without the need for defining any
   additional aliases.

   The drawback of this configuration is that it will work poorly on
   systems supporting lists in several different mail domains. While
   Mailman handles virtual domains, it does not yet support having two
   distinct lists with the same name in different virtual domains, using
   the same Mailman installation. This will eventually change. (But see
   below for a variation on this scheme that should accommodate virtual
   domains better.)

   The configuration file excerpts below are for use in an already
   functional Exim configuration, which accepts mail for the domain in
   which the list resides. If this domain is separate from the others
   handled by your Exim configuration, then you'll need to:

     * add the list domain, ``my.list.domain'' to local_domains
     * add a ``domains=my.list.domain'' option to the director (router)
       for the list
     * (optional) exclude that domain from your other directors (routers)

   Note: The instructions in this document should work with either Exim 3
   or Exim 4. In Exim 3, you must have a local_domains configuration
   setting; in Exim 4, you most likely have a local_domains domainlist.
   If you don't, you probably know what you're doing and can adjust
   accordingly. Similarly, in Exim 4 the concept of ``directors'' has
   disappeared - there are only routers now. So if you're using Exim 4,
   whenever this document says ``director'', read ``router''.

   Whether you are using Exim 3 or Exim 4, you will need to add some
   macros to the main section of your Exim config file. You will also
   need to define one new transport. With Exim 3, you'll need to add a
   new director; with Exim 4, a new router plays the same role.

   Finally, the configuration supplied here should allow co-habiting
   Mailman 2.0 and 2.1 installations, with the proviso that you'll
   probably want to use mm21 in place of mailman - e.g., MM21_HOME,
   mm21_transport, etc.

  6.2.2 Main configuration settings

   First, you need to add some macros to the top of your Exim config
   file. These just make the director (router) and transport below a bit
   cleaner. Obviously, you'll need to edit these based on how you
   configured and installed Mailman.

    # Home dir for your Mailman installation -- aka Mailman's prefix
    # directory.
    MAILMAN_HOME=/usr/local/mailman
    MAILMAN_WRAP=MAILMAN_HOME/mail/mailman

    # User and group for Mailman, should match your --with-mail-gid
    # switch to Mailman's configure script.
    MAILMAN_USER=mailman
    MAILMAN_GROUP=mailman

  6.2.3 Transport for Exim 3

   Add this to the transports section of your Exim config file, i.e.
   somewhere between the first and second ``end'' line:

  mailman_transport:
    driver = pipe
    command = MAILMAN_WRAP \
              '${if def:local_part_suffix \
                    {${sg{$local_part_suffix}{-(\\w+)(\\+.*)?}{\$1}}} \
                    {post}}' \
              $local_part
    current_directory = MAILMAN_HOME
    home_directory = MAILMAN_HOME
    user = MAILMAN_USER
    group = MAILMAN_GROUP

  6.2.4 Director for Exim 3

   If you're using Exim 3, you'll need to add the following director to
   your config file (directors go between the second and third ``end''
   lines). Also, don't forget that order matters - e.g. you can make
   Mailman lists take precedence over system aliases by putting this
   director in front of your aliasfile director, or vice-versa.

  # Handle all addresses related to a list 'foo': the posting address.
  # Automatically detects list existence by looking
  # for lists/$local_part/config.pck under MAILMAN_HOME.
  mailman_director:
    driver = smartuser
    require_files = MAILMAN_HOME/lists/$local_part/config.pck
    suffix_optional
    suffix = -bounces : -bounces+* : \
             -confirm+* : -join : -leave : \
             -owner : -request : -admin
    transport = mailman_transport

  6.2.5 Router for Exim 4

   In Exim 4, there's no such thing as directors - you need to add a new
   router instead. Also, the canonical order of the configuration file
   was changed so routers come before transports, so the router for Exim
   4 comes first here. Put this router somewhere after the ``begin
   routers'' line of your config file, and remember that order matters.

  mailman_router:
    driver = accept
    require_files = MAILMAN_HOME/lists/$local_part/config.pck
    local_part_suffix_optional
    local_part_suffix = -bounces : -bounces+* : \
                        -confirm+* : -join : -leave : \
                        -owner : -request : -admin
    transport = mailman_transport

  6.2.6 Transports for Exim 4

   The transport for Exim 4 is the same as for Exim 3 (see 6.2; just copy
   the transport given above to somewhere under the ``begin transports''
   line of your Exim config file.

  6.2.7 Additional notes

   Exim should be configured to allow reasonable volume - e.g. don't set
   max_recipients down to a silly value - and with normal degrees of
   security - specifically, be sure to allow relaying from 127.0.0.1, but
   pretty much nothing else. Parallel deliveries and other tweaks can
   also be used if you like; experiment with your setup to see what
   works. Delay warning messages should be switched off or configured to
   only happen for non-list mail, unless you like receiving tons of mail
   when some random host is down.

  6.2.8 Problems

     * Mailman will send as many MAIL FROM/RCPT TO as it needs. It may
       result in more than 10 or 100 messages sent in one connection,
       which will exceed the default value of Exim's
       smtp_accept_queue_per_connection value. This is bad because it
       will cause Exim to switch into queue mode and severely delay
       delivery of your list messages. The way to fix this is to set
       Mailman's SMTP_MAX_SESSIONS_PER_CONNECTION (in
       $prefix/Mailman/mm_cfg.py) to a smaller value than Exim's
       smtp_accept_queue_per_connection.
     * Mailman should ignore Exim delay warning messages, even though
       Exim should never send this to list messages. Mailman 2.1's
       general bounce detection and VERP support should greatly improve
       the bounce detector's hit rates.
     * List existence is determined by the existence of a config.pck file
       for a list. If you delete lists by foul means, be aware of this.
     * If you are getting Exim or Mailman complaining about user ids when
       you send mail to a list, check that the MAILMAN_USER and
       MAILMAN_GROUP match those of Mailman itself (i.e. what were used
       in the configure script). Also make sure you do not have aliases
       in the main alias file for the list.

  6.2.9 Receiver Verification

   Exim's receiver verification feature is very useful - it lets Exim
   reject unrouteable addresses at SMTP time. However, this is most
   useful for externally-originating mail that is addressed to mail in
   one of your local domains. For Mailman list traffic, mail originates
   on your server, and is addressed to random external domains that are
   not under your control. Furthermore, each message is addressed to many
   recipients - up to 500 if you use Mailman's default configuration and
   don't tweak SMTP_MAX_RCPTS.

   Doing receiver verification on Mailman list traffic is a recipe for
   trouble. In particular, Exim will attempt to route every recipient
   addresses in outgoing Mailman list posts. Even though this requires
   nothing more than a few DNS lookups for each address, it can still
   introduce significant delays. Therefore, you should disable recipient
   verification for Mailman traffic.

   Under Exim 3, put this in your main configuration section:

    receiver_verify_hosts = !127.0.0.1

   Under Exim 4, this is probably already taken care of for you by the
   default recipient verification ACL statement (in the RCPT TO ACL):

  accept  domains       = +local_domains
          endpass
          message       = unknown user
          verify        = recipient

   which only does recipient verification on addresses in your domain.
   (That's not exactly the same as doing recipient verification only on
   messages coming from non-127.0.0.1 hosts, but it should do the trick
   for Mailman.)

  6.2.10 SMTP Callback

   Exim's SMTP callback feature is an even more powerful way to detect
   bogus sender addresses than normal sender verification. Unfortunately,
   lots of servers send bounce messages with a bogus address in the
   header, and there are plenty that send bounces with bogus envelope
   senders (even though they're supposed to just use an empty envelope
   sender for bounces).

   In order to ensure that Mailman can disable/remove bouncing addresses,
   you generally want to receive bounces for Mailman lists, even if those
   bounces are themselves not bounceable. Thus, you might want to disable
   SMTP callback on bounce messages.

   With Exim 4, you can accomplish this using something like the
   following in your RCPT TO ACL:

  # Accept bounces to lists even if callbacks or other checks would fail
  warn     message      = X-WhitelistedRCPT-nohdrfromcallback: Yes
           condition    = \
           ${if and {{match{$local_part}{(.*)-bounces\+.*}} \
                     {exists {MAILMAN_HOME/lists/$1/config.pck}}} \
                {yes}{no}}
                {yes}{no}}

  accept   condition    = \
           ${if and {{match{$local_part}{(.*)-bounces\+.*}} \
                     {exists {MAILMAN_HOME/lists/$1/config.pck}}} \
                {yes}{no}}
                {yes}{no}}

  # Now, check sender address with SMTP callback.
  deny   !verify = sender/callout=90s

   If you also do SMTP callbacks on header addresses, you'll want
   something like this in your DATA ACL:

  deny   !condition = $header_X-WhitelistedRCPT-nohdrfromcallback:
         !verify = header_sender/callout=90s

  6.2.11 Doing VERP with Exim and Mailman

   VERP will send one email, with a separate envelope sender (return
   path), for each of your subscribers - read the information in
   $prefix/Mailman/Defaults.py for the options that start with VERP. In a
   nutshell, all you need to do to enable VERP with Exim is to add these
   lines to $prefix/Mailman/mm_cfg.py:

    VERP_PASSWORD_REMINDERS = Yes
    VERP_PERSONALIZED_DELIVERIES = Yes
    VERP_DELIVERY_INTERVAL = Yes
    VERP_CONFIRMATIONS = Yes

   (The director (router) above is smart enough to deal with VERP
   bounces.)

  6.2.12 Virtual Domains

   One approach to handling virtual domains is to use a separate Mailman
   installation for each virtual domain. Currently, this is the only way
   to have lists with the same name in different virtual domains handled
   by the same machine.

   In this case, the MAILMAN_HOME and MAILMAN_WRAP macros are useless -
   you can remove them. Change your director (router) to something like
   this:

  require_files = /virtual/${domain}/mailman/lists/${lc:$local_part}/config.pck

   and change your transport like this:

  command = /virtual/${domain}/mailman/mail/mailman \
            ${if def:local_part_suffix \
                 {${sg{$local_part_suffix}{-(\\w+)(\\+.*)?}{\$1}}}
                 {post}} \
              $local_part
  current_directory = /virtual/${domain}/mailman
  home_directory = /virtual/${domain}/mailman

  6.2.13 List Verification

   This is how a set of address tests for the Exim lists look on a
   working system. The list in question is
   quixote-users@mems-exchange.org, and these commands were run on the
   mems-exchange.org mail server ("% " indicates the Unix shell prompt):

  % exim -bt quixote-users
  quixote-users@mems-exchange.org
    router = mailman_main_router, transport = mailman_transport

  % exim -bt quixote-users-request
  quixote-users-request@mems-exchange.org
    router = mailman_router, transport = mailman_transport

  % exim -bt quixote-users-bounces
  quixote-users-bounces@mems-exchange.org
    router = mailman_router, transport = mailman_transport

  % exim -bt quixote-users-bounces+luser=example.com
  quixote-users-bounces+luser=example.com@mems-exchange.org
    router = mailman_router, transport = mailman_transport

   If your exim -bt output looks something like this, that's a start: at
   least it means Exim will pass the right messages to the right Mailman
   commands. It by no means guarantees that your Exim/Mailman
   installation is functioning perfectly, though!

  6.2.14 Document History

   Originally written by Nigel Metheringham postmaster@exim.org. Updated
   by Marc Merlin marc_soft@merlins.org for Mailman 2.1, Exim 4.
   Overhauled/reformatted/clarified/simplified by Greg Ward
   gward@python.net.

6.3 Using the Sendmail mail server

   Warning: You may be tempted to set the DELIVERY_MODULE configuration
   variable in mm_cfg.py to 'Sendmail' when using the Sendmail mail
   server. Don't. The Sendmail.py module is misnamed - it's really a
   command line based message handoff scheme as opposed to the SMTP
   scheme used in SMTPDirect.py (the default). Sendmail.py has known
   security holes and is provided as a proof-of-concept only^4. If you
   are having problems using SMTPDirect.py fix those instead of using
   Sendmail.py, or you may open your system up to security exploits.

  6.3.1 Sendmail ``smrsh'' compatibility

   Many newer versions of Sendmail come with a restricted execution
   utility called ``smrsh'', which limits the executables that Sendmail
   will allow to be used as mail programs. You need to explicitly allow
   Mailman's wrapper program to be used with smrsh or Mailman will not
   work. If mail is not getting delivered to Mailman's wrapper program
   and you're getting an ``operating system error'' in your mail syslog,
   this could be your problem.

   One good way of enabling this is:

     * Find out where your Sendmail executes its smrsh wrapper
            % grep smrsh /etc/mail/sendmail.cf

     * Figure out where smrsh expects symlinks for allowable mail
       programs. At the very beginning of the following output you will
       see a full path to some directory, e.g. /var/adm/sm.bin or
       similar:
            % strings $path_to_smrsh | less

     * cd into /var/adm/sm.bin, or where ever it happens to reside on
       your system - alternatives include /etc/smrsh, /var/smrsh and
       /usr/local/smrsh.
            % cd /var/adm/sm.bin

     * Create a symbolic link to Mailman's wrapper program:
            % ln -s /usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman mailman

  6.3.2 Integrating Sendmail and Mailman

   David Champion has contributed a recipe for more closely integrating
   Sendmail and Mailman, such that Sendmail will automatically recognize
   and deliver to new mailing lists as they are created, without having
   to manually edit alias tables.

   In the contrib directory of Mailman's source distribution, you will
   find four files:

     * mm-handler.readme - an explanation of how to set everything up
     * mm-handler - the mail delivery agent (MDA)
     * mailman.mc - a toy configuration file sample
     * virtusertable - a sample for RFC 2142 address exceptions

  6.3.3 Performance notes

   One of the surest performance killers for Sendmail users is when
   Sendmail is configured to synchronously verify the recipient's host
   via DNS. If it does this for messages posted to it from Mailman, you
   will get horrible performance. Since Mailman usually connects via
   localhost (i.e. 127.0.0.1) to the SMTP port of Sendmail, you should be
   sure to configure Sendmail to not do DNS verification synchronously
   for localhost connections.

6.4 Using the Qmail mail server

   There are some issues that users of the qmail mail transport agent
   have encountered. None of the core maintainers use qmail, so all of
   this information has been contributed by the Mailman user community,
   especially Martin Preishuber and Christian Tismer, with notes by
   Balazs Nagy (BN) and Norbert Bollow (NB).

     * You might need to set the mail-gid user to either qmail, mailman,
       or nofiles by using the --with-mail-gid configure option.
       BN: it highly depends on your mail storing policy. For example if
       you use the simple ~alias/.qmail-* files, you can use `id -g
       alias`. But if you use /var/qmail/users, the specified mail gid
       can be used.
       If you are going to be directing virtual domains directly to the
       mailman user (using ``virtualdomains'' on a list-only domain, for
       example), you will have to use --with-mail-gid=gid of mailman
       user's group. This is incompatible with having list aliases in
       ~alias, unless that alias simply forwards to mailman-listname*.
     * If there is a user mailman on your system, the alias mailman-owner
       will work only in ~mailman. You have to do a touch .qmail-owner in
       ~mailman directory to create this alias.
       NB: An alternative, IMHO better solution is to chown root
       ~mailman, that will stop qmail from considering mailman to be a
       user to whom mail can be delivered. (See ``man 8 qmail-getpw''.)
     * In a related issue, if you have any users with the same name as
       one of your mailing lists, you will have problems if list names
       contain "-" in them. Putting .qmail redirections into the user's
       home directory doesn't work because the Mailman wrappers will not
       get spawned with the proper GID. The solution is to put the
       following lines in the /var/qmail/users/assign file:
  +zope-:alias:112:11:/var/qmail/alias:-:zope-:
  .
       where in this case the listname is e.g. zope-users.
       NB: Alternatively, you could host the lists on a virtual domain,
       and use the /var/qmail/control/virtualdomains file to put the
       mailman user in charge of this virtual domain.
     * BN:If inbound messages are delivered by another user than mailman,
       it's necessary to allow it to access ~mailman. Be sure that
       ~mailman has group writing access and setgid bit is set. Then put
       the delivering user to mailman group, and you can deny access to
       ~mailman to others. Be sure that you can do the same with the WWW
       service.
       By the way the best thing is to make a virtual mail server to
       handle all of the mail. NB: E.g. make an additional "A" DNS record
       for the virtual mailserver pointing to your IP address, add the
       line lists.kva.hu:mailman to /var/qmail/control/virtualdomains and
       a lists.kva.hu line to /var/qmail/control/rcpthosts file. Don't
       forget to HUP the qmail-send after modifying ``virtualdomains''.
       Then every mail to lists.kva.hu will arrive to mail.kva.hu's
       mailman user.
       Then make your aliases:
          .qmail              => mailman@...'s letters
          .qmail-owner        => mailman-owner's letters
       For list aliases, you can either create them manually:
          .qmail-list         => posts to the 'list' list
          .qmail-list-admin   => posts to the 'list's owner
          .qmail-list-request => requests to 'list'
          etc
       or for automatic list alias handling (when using the lists.kva.hu
       virtual as above), see contrib/qmail-to-mailman.py in the Mailman
       source distribution. Modify the ~mailman/.qmail-default to
       include:
          |preline /path/to/python /path/to/qmail-to-mailman.py
       and new lists will automatically be picked up.
     * You have to make sure that the localhost can relay. If you start
       qmail via inetd and tcpenv, you need some line the following in
       your /etc/hosts.allow file:
      tcp-env: 127. 10.205.200. : setenv RELAYCLIENT
       where 10.205.200. is your IP address block. If you use tcpserver,
       then you need something like the following in your /etc/tcp.smtp
       file:
      10.205.200.:allow,RELAYCLIENT=""
      127.:allow,RELAYCLIENT=""
     * BN: Bigger /var/qmail/control/concurrencyremote values work better
       sending outbound messages, within reason. Unless you know your
       system can handle it (many if not most cannot) this should not be
       set to a value greater than 120.
     * More information about setting up qmail and relaying can be found
       in the qmail documentation.

   BN: Last but not least, here's a little script to generate aliases to
   your lists (if for some reason you can/will not have them
   automatically picked up using contrib/qmail-to-mailman.py):

   This script is for the Mailman 2.0 series:

#!/bin/sh
if [ $# = 1 ]; then
    i=$1
    echo Making links to $i in the current directory...
    echo "|preline /home/mailman/mail/mailman post $i" > .qmail-$i
    echo "|preline /home/mailman/mail/mailman mailowner $i" > .qmail-$i-admin
    echo "|preline /home/mailman/mail/mailman mailowner $i" > .qmail-$i-owner
    echo "|preline /home/mailman/mail/mailman mailowner $i" > .qmail-owner-$i
    echo "|preline /home/mailman/mail/mailman mailcmd $i" > .qmail-$i-request
fi

   Note: This is for a new Mailman 2.1 installation. Users upgrading from
   Mailman 2.0 would most likely change /usr/local/mailman to
   /home/mailman. If in doubt, refer to the --prefix option passed to
   configure during compile time.

#!/bin/sh
if [ $# = 1 ]; then
    i=$1
    echo Making links to $i in the current directory...
    echo "|preline /usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman post $i" > .qmail-$i
    echo "|preline /usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman admin $i" > .qmail-$i-admin
    echo "|preline /usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman bounces $i" > .qmail-$i-boun
ces
    # The following line is for VERP
    # echo "|preline /usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman bounces $i" > .qmail-$i-bo
unces-default
    echo "|preline /usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman confirm $i" > .qmail-$i-conf
irm
    echo "|preline /usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman join $i" > .qmail-$i-join
    echo "|preline /usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman leave $i" > .qmail-$i-leave
    echo "|preline /usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman owner $i" > .qmail-$i-owner
    echo "|preline /usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman request $i" > .qmail-$i-requ
est
    echo "|preline /usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman subscribe $i" > .qmail-$i-su
bscribe
    echo "|preline /usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman unsubscribe $i" > .qmail-$i-
unsubscribe
fi

  6.4.1 Information on VERP

   You will note in the alias generating script for 2.1 above, there is a
   line for VERP that has been commented out. If you are interested in
   VERP there are two options. The first option is to allow Mailman to do
   the VERP formatting. To activate this, uncomment that line and add the
   following lines to your mm_cfg.py file:

    VERP_FORMAT = '%(bounces)s-+%(mailbox)s=%(host)s'
    VERP_REGEXP = r'^(?P<bounces>.*?)-\+(?P<mailbox>[^=]+)=(?P<host>[^@]+)@.*$'

   The second option is a patch on SourceForge located at:

   http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=300103&aid=645513&gro
   up_id=103

   This patch currently needs more testing and might best be suitable for
   developers or people well familiar with qmail. Having said that, this
   patch is the more qmail-friendly approach resulting in large
   performance gains.

  6.4.2 Virtual mail server

   As mentioned in the 6.4 section for a virtual mail server, a patch
   under testing is located at:

   http://sf.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=621257&group_id=103&at
   id=300103

   Again, this patch is for people familiar with their qmail
   installation.

  6.4.3 More information

   You might be interested in some information on modifying footers that
   Norbert Bollow has written about Mailman and qmail, available here:

   http://mailman.cis.to/qmail-verh/

                          7 Review your site defaults

   Mailman has a large number of site-wide configuration options which
   you should now review and change according to your needs. Some of the
   options control how Mailman interacts with your environment, and other
   options select defaults for newly created lists^5. There are system
   tuning parameters and integration options.

   The full set of site-wide defaults lives in the
   $prefix/Mailman/Defaults.py file, however you should never modify this
   file! Instead, change the mm_cfg.py file in that same directory. You
   only need to add values to mm_cfg.py that are different than the
   defaults in Defaults.py, and future Mailman upgrades are guaranteed
   never to touch your mm_cfg.py file.

   The Defaults.py file is documented extensively, so the options are not
   described here. The Defaults.py and mm_cfg.py are both Python files so
   valid Python syntax must be maintained or your Mailman installation
   will break.

   Note: Do not change the HOME_DIR or MAILMAN_DIR variables. These are
   set automatically by the configure script, and you will break your
   Mailman installation by if you change these.

   You should make any changes to mm_cfg.py using the account you
   installed Mailman under in the 14 section.

                       8 Create a site-wide mailing list

   After you have completed the integration of Mailman and your mail
   server, you need to create a ``site-wide'' mailing list. This is the
   one that password reminders will appear to come from, and it is
   required for proper Mailman operation. Usually this should be a list
   called mailman, but if you need to change this, be sure to change the
   MAILMAN_SITE_LIST variable in mm_cfg.py. You can create the site list
   with this command, following the prompts:

    % bin/newlist mailman

   Now configure your site list. There is a convenient template for a
   generic site list in the installation directory, under
   data/sitelist.cfg which can help you with this. You should review the
   configuration options in the template, but note that any options not
   named in the sitelist.cfg file won't be changed.

   The template can be applied to your site list by running:

    % bin/config_list -i data/sitelist.cfg mailman

   After applying the sitelist.cfg options, be sure you review the site
   list's configuration via the admin pages.

   You should also subscribe yourself to the site list.

                                 9 Set up cron

   Several Mailman features occur on a regular schedule, so you must set
   up cron to run the right programs at the right time^6.

   If your version of crontab supports the -u option, you must be root to
   do this next step. Add $prefix/cron/crontab.in as a crontab entry by
   executing these commands:

    % cd $prefix/cron
    % crontab -u mailman crontab.in

   If you used the --with-username option, use that user name instead of
   mailman for the -u argument value. If your crontab does not support
   the -u option, try these commands:

    % cd $prefix/cron
    % su - mailman
    % crontab crontab.in

                         10 Start the Mailman qrunner

   Mailman depends on a process called the ``qrunner'' to delivery all
   email messages it sees. You must start the qrunner by executing the
   following command from the $prefix directory:

    % bin/mailmanctl start

   You probably want to start Mailman every time you reboot your system.
   Exactly how to do this depends on your operating system. If your OS
   supports the chkconfig command (e.g. RedHat and Mandrake Linuxes) you
   can do the following (as root, from the Mailman install directory):

    % cp scripts/mailman /etc/init.d/mailman
    % chkconfig --add mailman

   Note that /etc/init.d may be /etc/rc.d/init.d on some systems.

   On Gentoo Linux, you can do the following:

    % cp scripts/mailman /etc/init.d/mailman
    % rc-update add mailman default

   On Debian, you probably want to use:

    % update-rc.d mailman defaults

   For Unixes that don't support chkconfig, you might try the following
   set of commands:

    % cp scripts/mailman /etc/init.d/mailman
    % cp misc/mailman /etc/init.d
    % cd /etc/rc.d/rc0.d
    % ln -s ../init.d/mailman K12mailman
    % cd ../rc1.d
    % ln -s ../init.d/mailman K12mailman
    % cd ../rc2.d
    % ln -s ../init.d/mailman S98mailman
    % cd ../rc3.d
    % ln -s ../init.d/mailman S98mailman
    % cd ../rc4.d
    % ln -s ../init.d/mailman S98mailman
    % cd ../rc5.d
    % ln -s ../init.d/mailman S98mailman
    % cd ../rc6.d
    % ln -s ../init.d/mailman K12mailman

                        11 Check the hostname settings

   You should check the values for DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST and
   DEFAULT_URL_HOST in Defaults.py. Make any necessary changes in the
   mm_cfg.py file, not in the Defaults.py file. If you change either of
   these two values, you'll want to add the following afterwards in the
   mm_cfg.py file:

    add_virtualhost(DEFAULT_URL_HOST, DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST)

   You will want to run the bin/fix_url.py to change the domain of any
   existing lists.

                          12 Create the site password

   There are two site-wide passwords that you can create from the command
   line, using the bin/mmsitepass script. The first is the ``site
   password'' which can be used anywhere a password is required in the
   system. The site password will get you into the administration page
   for any list, and it can be used to log in as any user. Think root for
   a Unix system, so pick this password wisely!

   The second password is a site-wide ``list creator'' password. You can
   use this to delegate the ability to create new mailing lists without
   providing all the privileges of the site password. Of course, the
   owner of the site password can also create new mailing lists, but the
   list creator password is limited to just that special role.

   To set the site password, use this command:

    % $prefix/bin/mmsitepass <your-site-password>

   To set the list creator password, use this command:

    % $prefix/bin/mmsitepass -c <list-creator-password>

   It is okay not to set a list creator password, but you probably do
   want a site password.

                       13 Create your first mailing list

   For more detailed information about using Mailman, including creating
   and configuring mailing lists, see the Mailman List Adminstration
   Manual. These instructions provide a quick guide to creating your
   first mailing list via the web interface:

     * Start by visiting the url http://my.dom.ain/mailman/create.
     * Fill out the form as described in the on-screen instructions, and
       in the ``List creator's password'' field, type the password you
       entered in section 7. Type your own email address for the
       ``Initial list owner address'', and select ``Yes'' to notify the
       list administrator.
     * Click on the ``Create List'' button.
     * Check your email for a message from Mailman informing you that
       your new mailing list was created.
     * Now visit the list's administration page, either by following the
       link on the confirmation web page or clicking on the link from the
       email Mailman just sent you. Typically the url will be something
       like http://my.dom.ain/mailman/admin/mylist.
     * Type in the list's password and click on ``Let me in...''
     * Click on ``Membership Management'' and then on ``Mass
       Subscription''.
     * Enter your email address in the big text field, and click on
       ``Submit Your Changes''.
     * Now go to your email and send a message to mylist@my.dom.ain.
       Within a minute or two you should see your message reflected back
       to you via Mailman.

   Congratulations! You've just set up and tested your first Mailman
   mailing list. If you had any problems along the way, please see the 14
   section.

                              14 Troubleshooting

   If you encounter problems with running Mailman, first check the
   question and answer section below. If your problem is not covered
   there, check the online help, including the FAQ and the interactive
   FAQ wizard.

   Also check for errors in your syslog files, your mail and web server
   log files and in Mailman's $prefix/logs/error file. If you're still
   having problems, you should send a message to the
   mailman-users@python.org mailing list^7; see
   http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users for more
   information.

   Be sure to including information on your operating system, which
   version of Python you're using, and which version of Mailman you're
   installing.

   Here is a list of some common questions and answers:

     * Problem: All Mailman web pages give a 404 File not found error.
       Solution: Your web server has not been set up properly for
       handling Mailman's CGI programs. Make sure you have:
         1. configured the web server to give permissions to
            $prefix/cgi-bin
         2. restarted the web server properly.
       Consult your web server's documentation for instructions on how to
       do check these issues.
     * Problem: All Mailman web pages give an "Internal Server Error".
       Solution: The likely problem is that you are using the wrong user
       or group for the CGI scripts. Check your web server's log files.
       If you see a line like
            Attempt to exec script with invalid gid 51, expected 99
       you will need to reinstall Mailman, specifying the proper CGI
       group id, as described in the section.
     * Problem: I send mail to the list, and get back mail saying the
       list is not found!
       Solution: You probably didn't add the necessary aliases to the
       system alias database, or you didn't properly integrate Mailman
       with your mail server. Perhaps you didn't update the alias
       database, or your system requires you to run newaliases
       explicitly. Refer to your server specific instructions in the 6
       section.
     * Problem: I send mail to the list, and get back mail saying,
       ``unknown mailer error''.
       Solution: The likely problem is that you are using the wrong user
       or group id for the mail wrappers. Check your mail server's log
       files; if you see a line like
            Attempt to exec script with invalid gid 51, expected 99
       you will need to reinstall Mailman, specifying the proper mail
       group id as described in the section.
     * Problem: I use Postfix as my mail server and the mail wrapper
       programs are logging complaints about the wrong GID.
       Solution: Make sure the $prefix/data/aliases.db file is user owned
       by mailman (or whatever user name you used in the configure
       command). If this file is not user owned by mailman, Postfix will
       not run the mail programs as the correct user.
     * Problem: I use Sendmail as my mail server, and when I send mail to
       the list, I get back mail saying, ``sh: mailman not available for
       sendmail programs''.
       Solution: Your system uses the Sendmail restricted shell (smrsh).
       You need to configure smrsh by creating a symbolic link from the
       mail wrapper ($prefix/mail/mailman) to the directory identifying
       executables allowed to run under smrsh.
       Some common names for this directory are /var/admin/sm.bin,
       /usr/admin/sm.bin or /etc/smrsh.
       Note that on Debian Linux, the system makes /usr/lib/sm.bin, which
       is wrong, you will need to create the directory /usr/admin/sm.bin
       and add the link there. Note further any aliases newaliases spits
       out will need to be adjusted to point to the secure link to the
       wrapper.
     * Problem: I messed up when I called configure. How do I clean
       things up and re-install?
       Solution:
        % make clean
        % ./configure --with-the-right-options
        % make install

                    15 Platform and operating system notes

   Generally, Mailman runs on any POSIX-based system, such as Solaris,
   the various BSD variants, Linux systems, MacOSX, and other generic
   Unix systems. It doesn't run on Windows. For the most part, the
   generic instructions given in this document should be sufficient to
   get Mailman working on any supported platform. Some operating systems
   have additional recommended installation or configuration
   instructions.

15.1 GNU/Linux issues

   Linux seems to be the most popular platform for running Mailman. Here
   are some hints on getting Mailman to run on Linux:

     * If you are getting errors with hard link creations and/or you are
       using a special secure kernel (securelinux/openwall/grsecurity),
       see the file contrib/README.check_perms_grsecurity in the Mailman
       source distribution.
       Note that if you are using Linux Mandrake in secure mode, you are
       probably concerned by this.
     * Apparently Mandrake 9.0 changed the permissions on gcc, so if you
       build as the mailman user, you need to be sure mailman is in the
       cctools group.
     * If you installed Python from your Linux distribution's package
       manager (e.g. .rpms for Redhat-derived systems or .deb for
       Debian), you must install the ``development'' package of Python,
       or you may not get everything you need.
       For example, using Python 2.2 on Debian, you will need to install
       the python2.2-dev package. On Redhat, you probably need the
       python2-devel package.
       If you install Python from source, you should be fine.
       One symptom of this problem, although for unknown reasons, is that
       you might get an error such as this during your install:
          Traceback (most recent call last):
            File "bin/update", line 44, in ?
              import paths
          ImportError: No module named paths
          make: *** [update] Error 1
       If this happens, install the Python development package and try
       configure and make install again. Or install the latest version of
       Python from source, available from http://www.python.org.
       This problem can manifest itself in other Linux distributions in
       different ways, although usually it appears as ImportErrors.

15.2 BSD issues

   Vivek Khera writes that some BSDs do nightly security scans for setuid
   file changes. setgid directories also come up on the scan when they
   change. Also, the setgid bit is not necessary on BSD systems because
   group ownership is automatically inherited on files created in
   directories. On other Unixes, this only happens when the directory has
   the setgid bit turned on.

   To install without turning on the setgid bit on directories, simply
   pass in the DIRSETGID variable to make, after you've run configure:

    % make DIRSETGID=: install

   This disables the chmod g+s command on installed directories.

15.3 MacOSX issues

   Many people run Mailman on MacOSX. Here are some pointers that have
   been collected on getting Mailman to run on MacOSX.

     * Jaguar (MacOSX 10.2) comes with Python 2.2. While this isn't the
       very latest stable version of Python, it ought to be sufficient to
       run Mailman 2.1.
     * David B. O'Donnell has a web page describing his configuration of
       Mailman 2.0.13 and Postfix on MacOSX Server.
       http://www.afp548.com/Articles/mail/python-mailman.html
     * Kathleen Webb posted her experiences in getting Mailman running on
       Jaguar using Sendmail.
       http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2002-October/022944
       .html
     * Panther server (MacOSX 10.3) comes with Mailman; Your operating
       system should contain documentation that will help you, and Apple
       has a tech document about a problem you might encounter running
       Mailman on Mac OS X Server 10.3:
       http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107889

   Terry Allen provides the following detailed instructions on running
   Mailman on the 'client' version of OSX, or in earlier versions of OSX:

   Mac OSX 10.3 and onwards has the basics for a successful Mailman
   installation. Users of earlier versions of Mac OSX contains Sendmail
   and those users should look at the Sendmail installation section for
   tips. You should follow the basic installation steps as described
   earlier in this manual, substituting as appropriate, the steps
   outlined in this section.

   By default, Mac OSX 10.3 'client' version does not have a fully
   functional version of Postfix. Setting up a working MTA such as
   Postfix is beyond the scope of this guide and you should refer to
   http://www.postfix.org for tips on getting Postfix running. An easy
   way to set Postfix up is to install and run Postfix Enabler, a
   stand-alone tool for configuring Postfix on Mac OSX, available from
   http://www.roadstead.com/weblog/Tutorials/PostfixEnabler.html.

   Likewise, Mac OSX 'client' version from 10.1 onwards includes a
   working Apache webserver. This is switched on using the System
   Preferences control panel under the 'Sharing tab'. A useful tool for
   configuring the Apache on Mac OSX is Webmin, which can be obtained
   from http://www.webmin.com.

   Webmin can also perform configuration for other system tasks,
   including Postfix, adding jobs to your crontab, adding user and
   groups, plus adding startup and shutdown jobs.

   In a stock installation of OSX, the requirement for Mailman is to have
   Python installed. Python is not installed by default, so it is advised
   that you install the developer's tools package, which may have been
   provided with your system. It can also be downloaded from the Apple
   developer site at http://connect.apple.com. Not only is the developer
   tools package an essential requirement for installing Mailman, but it
   will come in handy at a later date should you need other tools. The
   developer's tools are also know by the name XCode tools.

   As a minimum, the Python version should be 2.2, but 2.3 is
   recommended.

   If you wish to add a user and group using the command line in OSX
   instead of via Webmin or another GUI interface, open your terminal
   application and follow the commands as indicated below - do not type
   the comments following the "#" since they are just notes:

sudo tcsh
niutil -create / /users/mailman
niutil -createprop / /users/mailman name mailman
# Note that xxx is a free user ID number on your system
niutil -createprop / /users/mailman uid xxx
niutil -createprop / /users/mailman home /usr/local/mailman
mkdir -p /usr/local/mailman
niutil -createprop / /users/mailman shell /bin/tcsh
passwd mailman
# To prevent malicious hacking, supply a secure password here
niutil -create / /groups/mailman
niutil -createprop / /groups/mailman name mailman
# Note that xxx is a free group ID number on your system
niutil -createprop / /groups/mailman gid xxx
niutil -createprop / /groups/mailman passwd '*'
niutil -createprop / /groups/mailman users 'mailman'
chown mailman:mailman /usr/local/mailman
cd /usr/local/mailman
chmod a+rx,g+ws .
exit
su mailman

   For setting up Apache on OSX to handle Mailman, the steps are almost
   identical and the configuration file on a stock Mac OSX Client version
   is stored in the nearly standard location of /etc/httpd/httpd.conf.

   The AFP548.com site has a time-saving automated startup item creator
   for Mailman, which can be found at
   http://www.afp548.com/Software/MailmanStartup.tar.gz

   To install it, copy it into your /Library/StartupItems directory. As
   the root or superuser, from the terminal, enter the following:

gunzip MailmanStartup.tar.gz
tar xvf MailmanStartup.tar

   It will create the startup item for you so that when you reboot,
   Mailman will start up.

                            About this document ...

   GNU Mailman - Installation Manual, May 30, 2005, Release 2.1

   This document was generated using the LaTeX2HTML translator.

   LaTeX2HTML is Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, Nikos Drakos,
   Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds, and Copyright ©
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   The application of LaTeX2HTML to the Python documentation has been
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     _________________________________________________________________

    Footnotes

   ... right^1
          You will be able to check and repair your permissions after
          installation is complete.

   .../usr/local/mailman^2
          This is the default for Mailman 2.1. Earlier versions of
          Mailman installed everything under /home/mailman by default.

   ... set^3
          BSD users should see the 15.2 section for additional
          information.

   ... only^4
          In fact, in later versions of Mailman, this module is
          explicitly sabotaged. You have to know what you're doing in
          order to re-enable it.

   ... lists^5
          In general, changing the list defaults described in this
          section will not affect any already created lists. To make
          changes after a list has been created, use the web interface or
          the command line scripts, such as bin/withlist and
          bin/config_list.

   ... time^6
          Note that if you're upgrading from a previous version of
          Mailman, you'll want to install the new crontab, but be careful
          if you're running multiple Mailman installations on your site!
          Changing the crontab could mess with other parallel Mailman
          installations.

   ... list^7
          You must subscribe to this mailing list in order to post to it,
          but the mailing list's archives are publicly visible.
     _________________________________________________________________

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     _________________________________________________________________

   Release 2.1, documentation updated on May 30, 2005.
