Mailman Demystified

Mailman is a tool that allows you to setup mailing lists. You can use mailman to setup public or private lists. Public lists would be useful for sending out promotional emails to clients, or emails about updates to services. Private mailing lists, on the other hand, are useful if you want to communicate with all employees in a company or only in specific departments. In this guide, I will be going over the scripts found in this software, what they do, and how to resolve some common issues encountered with Mailman. Mailman Paths Mailman /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman Lists /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/lists/$MAILINGLIST/ Logs /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/logs/{bounce,error,locks,mischief,post,runner,smtp,smtp-failure,subscribe,vette} Scripts /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/bin/ Private vs. Public Private - Mailing list has private archives, are not displayed on mailman interface, and administrators have to approve subscriptions. Useful for internal communications (salesteam@domain.com, tech@domain.com, admins@domain.com) Public - Public archives, anyone can subscribe, and is displayed on mailman interface. Useful for customer facing communication (bugs@domain.com, feedback@domain.com) cPanel Scripts The following scripts are all written by cPanel for basic Mailman administration and stored in /scripts/ /scripts/fixmailman

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• Checks if mailman is disabled (Checks if skipmailman=1 in /var/cpanel/cpanel.config)
• Updates mailman
• Fixes permissions on archives and mailing lists. Archive directory permissions should be 2750, while archives themselves should be 640. Mailing lists directories should be 2755, while the mailing lists themselves should be 664. The root mailing list directory should have permissions set to 660.
  
• Checks for qfiles (pickle files are the standard mechanism for object serialization) in mailman/qfiles/out and removes as needed
• Restarts mailman (/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/restartsrv --wait mailman)

/scripts/reinstallmailman This script is deprecated. Instead, run /usr/local/cpanel/bin/mailman-install --force /usr/local/cpanel/bin/mailman-install --force This script is non-destructive. It does not remove existing lists.

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• Adds mailman user, sets homedir to /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/ and sets correct groups on user
• Updates python if needed by fetching stable python and compiling from source.
• Installs dnspython dependancies after backing up current dnspython install. DNSPython is a DNS toolkit for python that supports almost all record types. It is used in queries, zone transfers, and dynamic updates. It provides by high and low level access to DNS.
  
• Sets up mailman cronjob. The cronjob is stored at /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/cron/crontab.in. The cron is set to gzip the archives and remove old entries from the "bad" and "shunt" queue.
• Sets correct ownership and permissions on installation. Archive directory permissions should be 2750, while archives themselves should be 640. Mailing lists directories should be 2755, while the mailing lists themselves should be 664. The root mailing list directory should have permissions set to 660.
  

/scripts/resetmailmanurls Resets the hostname variable in the mailman configuration to match the hostname of the server. Used after changing the hostname of the server. This script is also ran nightly during /scripts/upcp --cron to prevent broken lists from incorrect hostnames. /scripts/restartsrv_mailman Restarts mailman service /scripts/set_mailman_archive_perms Corrects mailman archive permissions. Archive directory permissions should be 2750, while archives themselves should be 640. /scripts/update_mailman_cache Calculates disk space usage of Mailman scripts and adds it to cPanel users total disk space usage.' Mailman scripts The following scripts are provided by the mailman software and are all located in /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/bin/ add_members - Add members to a list from the command line. arch - Rebuild a list's archive. b4b5-archfix - rebuild archives created in < mailman 2.1b4 change_pw - change a lists password check_db - Check a list's config database file for integrity check_perms - Check the permissions for the Mailman installation cleanarch - Clean up an .mbox archive file clone_member - Clone a member address config_list - Configure a list from a text file description convert.py - Convert a list's interpolation strings from %-strings to $-strings -> ran with withlist discard - Discard held messages dumpdb - Dump the contents of any Mailman `database' file export.py - Export an XML representation of a mailing list find_member- Find all lists that a member's address is on fix_url.py - Reset a list's web_page_url attribute to the default setting genaliases - Regenerate Mailman specific aliases from scratch inject - Inject a message from a file into Mailman's incoming queue. list_admins - list all the owners of a mailing list list_lists - list all mailing lists list_members - list all members of a list list_owners - list all owners of a list mailmanctl - primary start up and shutdown script for qrunner daemon mmsitepass - set the site password msgfmt.py - generate binary message catalog for textual translation description newlist - create a new unpopulated mailing list paths.py - Tells mailman where to locate mailman installation. Called by other scripts, never used on its own. qrunner - run one or more runners once or repeatedly rb-archfix - Reduce disk space usage for Pipermail archives remove_members - removes member from list reset_pw.py - reset password for members of mailing list rmlist - removed the components of a mailing list with impunity show_qfiles - show the contents of one or more mailman queue files sync_members - sync a mailing list membership with a flat file transcheck - ensure variables in translations match templates and catalog unshunt - move a message from the shunt queue to the original queue update - perform all necessary upgrades version - print mailman version withlist - general framework for interacting with mailing list object Mailing List Delegation You can delegate administrative rights on a mailing list to specified list members. Delegates can approve messages that await approval, add and remove members, and act as administrators for a list. To manage the Delegation settings on a mailing list, search for the name of the mailing list that you wish to manage and click the appropriate Delegation link. How to delegate administrative rights to an additional user To delegate administrative rights on a mailing list, perform the following steps:

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• Under Available Users, select the email addresses of the users to whom you wish to delegate administrative rights.
• Click the right arrow button
• Click Save.

How to remove administrative rights from a user To remove administrative rights from an address on a mailing list, perform the following steps:

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• Under List Administrators, select the email addresses of the users from which you wish to remove administrative rights.
• Click the left arrow button.
• Click Save.

Common Issues and fixes How do I change links in the Mailman interface to point to mail.example.com instead of example.com? To point URLs in the Mailman interface to mail.example.com instead of example.com, enable the Prefix "mail." onto Mailman URLs option in WHM's Tweak Settings interface. What should I do if I get an error that says We hit a bug? If you get the We hit a bug error message when you access the Mailman interface, check the /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/logs/error file for error messages. Based on the error message in the log, the following steps may resolve the issue:

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• Use the /script/fixmailman script to resolve common Mailman issues.
• Use the /scripts/fixcommonproblems script to correct mailbox permissions, common mailman issues, CGI script issues, NDC and quota issues.
• Update cPanel & WHM with the /scripts/upcp script.
• To reinstall Mailman, use the /usr/local/cpanel/bin/mailman-install --force command.
• Mailman uses Python. If there is an issue with Python, reinstall Python with the /scripts/pythonup --force command.

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