From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.3b) Gecko/20030211 Description of problem: The mailman included with RedHat 9 fails badly when upgrading; possibly also when installing new. I have found at least the following problems: a) All mail aliases have to be changed from invoking /var/mailman/mail/wrapper to /var/mailman/mail/mailman b) The set of aliases for each mailing list have changed (I personally use a separate aliases file for mailman aliases and have them auto-generated from the current set of lists. I recommend doing the same!) c) One needs to add MAILMAN_USER and MAILMAN_GROUP to /var/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py d) (Possible) one needs to run the update script. Although the web interface works "out of the box", received postings bounce or are lost or delayed. This is therefor a possible data loss bug. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): mailman-2.1-8 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: Upgrade a working Mailman host from RH8 to RH9 Additional info:
I ran into the exact same problem set as listed here when upgrading a working Redhat 8.0 mailman to Redhat 9. As additional info, I also had to: chkconfig --level 35 mailman on (mailman was not being started at any run level). The symptom I had when trying to manually start was: --- # service mailman start Traceback (most recent call last): File "/var/mailman/bin/mailmanctl", line 524, in ? main() File "/var/mailman/bin/mailmanctl", line 319, in main check_privs() File "/var/mailman/bin/mailmanctl", line 274, in check_privs gid = grp.getgrnam(mm_cfg.MAILMAN_GROUP)[2] KeyError: getgrnam(): name not found --- Adding: MAILMAN_USER = 'mailman' MAILMAN_GROUP = 'mailman' to /var/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py corrected that problem. If I hadn't found this bug report, I'd be pulling my hair out; thanks to the original reporter!
Created attachment 90933 [details] Script to create aliases This is the script I use to create aliases. This is a lot handier than cutting-and-pasting aliases when prompted by the newlists script, and furthermore it's a lot easier to deal with when Mailman changes aliases! To use this, you need something like the following in /etc/mail/sendmail.mc: define(`ALIAS_FILE',`/etc/mail/aliases,/var/mailman/aliases')dnl Using a separate alias file for mailman-generated aliases should be pretty obvious... I'm obviously recommending that RedHat considers doing something like this in their mailman package.
I get these problems on fresh full installs as well
I just did an clean install (NOT an upgrade), and programs like ./check_perms and ./mailmanctl under /var/mailman/bin give an error. This bug appears to affect both upgrades and new installs. Traceback (most recent call last): File "/var/mailman/bin/mailmanctl", line 524, in ? main() File "/var/mailman/bin/mailmanctl", line 319, in main check_privs() File "/var/mailman/bin/mailmanctl", line 274, in check_privs gid = grp.getgrnam(mm_cfg.MAILMAN_GROUP)[2] KeyError: getgrnam(): name not found The fix for me was to edit the mm_cfg.py in /var/mailman/Mailman and manually set the MAILMAN_USER and MAILMAN_GROUP variables to 'mailman'. There is already a MAILMAN_UID and MAILMAN_GID set, but it seems that those two scripts use MAILMAN_USER/_GROUP instead.
Ack... The bug with the missing MAILMAN_USER, MAILMAN_GROUP is known and understood. As time permits I will make a new RPM that corrects it. FYI, the problem arises because of a philosophy conflict. The mailman build configuration script expects the user/group "mailman" to exist before being run. Internal build policy prohibits the creation of users and or groups on build machines. As a consequence local build/testing did not reveal this problem, it only appeared after the package went through the official build process. This problem only occured as of mailman 2.1 with a change in the configure script. I have to modify the configure script to remove the reliance on existing users/groups. Barry (the mailman author) has agreed this is a good change. I'm sorry folks have gotten bit by this :-(
mailman-2.1.1-3 fixes the build problem so that MAILMAN_USER and MAILMAN_GROUP should be properly defined in Defaults.py
An errata has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on the solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2003-179.html
Running mailman 2.1-8 and getting exactly the same behavior. ccm-l Mailman # /etc/init.d/mailman restart Traceback (most recent call last): File "/var/mailman/bin/mailmanctl", line 524, in ? main() File "/var/mailman/bin/mailmanctl", line 319, in main check_privs() File "/var/mailman/bin/mailmanctl", line 274, in check_privs gid = grp.getgrnam(mm_cfg.MAILMAN_GROUP)[2] KeyError: getgrnam(): name not found --- I tried setting UID and GID in mm_cfg.py as described and it has no effect.
Please verify that the user and group mailman exists (should be 41 for both). % grep mailman /etc/group % grep mailman /etc/passwd If both the user and group exist and are 41 then please attach a copy of your mm_cfg.py file.
opps, looks like email didn't go to Robert, adding him to cc list, Robert please read previous comment.
The groups existed, so I did the only intelligent thing I could think of to do. Tore everything out, including Postfix, and started over. The second time it worked, so either cosmic rays were interfering with bit transfer from the hard drive or I did something amazingly stupid. My vote is for the latter. Thanks for the help, guys.