Mailman Quickstart for RedHat

Note: Tested on RH 9 using Mailman version 2.1.1-5, installed from RPM.

1. Install:

   (sudo) rpm -Uvh mailman-version.rpm
   

2. Edit /var/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py and fix these lines:

   DEFAULT_URL_HOST   = 'www.domain.com'
   DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST = 'domain.com'
   

3. Edit /etc/httpd/conf.d/mailman.conf and uncomment/fix this line:

   RedirectMatch /mailman[/]*$ http://www.domain.com/mailman/listinfo
   

   Then restart httpd.

4. cd /var/mailman/bin and run "mmsitepass" to set the Mailman site password.

5. Create a "site-wide" mailing list. This is the one that password reminders will appear to come from. It needs to be called "mailman."

   cd /var/mailman/
   ./newlist
   

   Follow the prompts. NOTE: When it asks for admin "name", enter an email address, or it'll fail. Ignore the /etc/aliases line that it spews out at you, you don't care about messages being sent TO the "mailman" list. (Right?)

6. (sudo) /etc/init.d/mailman start

7. Now create your real mailing list(s) via the web interface. It will tell you to paste some lines into /etc/aliases, like this:

   mymailinglist:              "|/var/mailman/mail/mailman post mymailinglist"
   mymailinglist-admin:        "|/var/mailman/mail/mailman admin mymailinglist"
   mymailinglist-bounces:      "|/var/mailman/mail/mailman bounces mymailinglist"
   mymailinglist-confirm:      "|/var/mailman/mail/mailman confirm mymailinglist"
   mymailinglist-join:         "|/var/mailman/mail/mailman join mymailinglist"
   mymailinglist-leave:        "|/var/mailman/mail/mailman leave mymailinglist"
   mymailinglist-owner:        "|/var/mailman/mail/mailman owner mymailinglist"
   mymailinglist-request:      "|/var/mailman/mail/mailman request mymailinglist"
   mymailinglist-subscribe:    "|/var/mailman/mail/mailman subscribe mymailinglist"
   mymailinglist-unsubscribe:  "|/var/mailman/mail/mailman unsubscribe mymailinglist"
   

   Then run the "newaliases" command. Also, make sure that the installation of Mailman already put in two similar lines (add them if not):

   # Basic system aliases -- these MUST be present.
   mailer-daemon:  postmaster
   postmaster:     root
   

8. If you're using /etc/mail/virtusertable and you want to have a catchall/wildcard address, add entries like this to virtusertable:

   # mailman aliases
   mailman@domain.com				mailman
   mailman-owner@domain.com 			mailman-owner
   mymailinglist@domain.com			mymailinglist
   mymailinglist-admin@domain.com			mymailinglist-admin
   mymailinglist-bounces@domain.com		mymailinglist-bounces
   mymailinglist-confirm@domain.com		mymailinglist-confirm
   mymailinglist-join@domain.com			mymailinglist-join
   mymailinglist-leave@domain.com			mymailinglist-leave
   mymailinglist-owner@domain.com			mymailinglist-owner
   mymailinglist-request@domain.com		mymailinglist-request
   mymailinglist-subscribe@domain.com		mymailinglist-subscribe
   mymailinglist-unsubscribe@domain.com		mymailinglist-unsubscribe
   

   Restart sendmail.

   Explanation: Because virtusertable is parsed before aliases, these lines in virtusertable hand off matches to aliases which in turn pipes them to the appropriate Mailman processors. This way you can still have a wildcard address in your virtusertable file, after the Mailman meta-aliases.

Another badly-documented task. To delete specific messages from your list archives, do the following:

cd /var/mailman/archives/private  # public archs are just symlinked to private
rm -rf mailinglist
cd /var/mailman/archives/private/goosepondchat.mbox
edit goosepondchat.mbox, delete the lines containing the messages you want gone
cd /var/mailman/bin
run ./arch mailinglist

To delete or remove a list entirely:

cd /var/mailman/bin
sudo ./rmlist -a listname
(then delete the relevant entries from /etc/aliases and /etc/mail/virtusertable, if necessary)

References: