# Mailman installs but does not work

## Moriah

I just installed the latest Mailman on my email/web server box, but I cannot bring up any of the mailman web pages, and I cannot get the email interface to work either.  The installation itself went fine with a simple emerge.  I then followed the instructions at the gentoo wiki at http://gentoo-wiki.com/Mailman#Installing

I am running sendmail 8.14.0 and apache 2.0.58-r2

The web pages come up:

```

Not Found

The requested URL /mailman/listinfo was not found on this server.

```

When I send mailman-request@elilabs.com I get the response:

```

From VM Sat Jul  7 13:34:00 2007

Return-Path: <MAILER-DAEMON>

X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.8-gr1 (2007-02-13) on eli.elilabs.com

X-Spam-Level: 

X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.2 required=3.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,FROM_NO_LOWER,

   NO_RELAYS autolearn=no version=3.1.8-gr1

Received: from localhost (localhost)

   by eli.elilabs.com (8.13.7/8.13.7) id l67HXVaP027959;

   Sat, 7 Jul 2007 13:33:31 -0400

Message-Id: <200707071733.l67HXVaP027959@eli.elilabs.com>

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: multipart/report; report-type=delivery-status;

   boundary="l67HXVaP027959.1183829611/eli.elilabs.com"

Auto-Submitted: auto-generated (failure)

From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON>

To: <rj@elilabs.com>

Subject: Returned mail: see transcript for details

Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2007 13:33:31 -0400

This is a MIME-encapsulated message

--l67HXVaP027959.1183829611/eli.elilabs.com

The original message was received at Sat, 7 Jul 2007 13:33:30 -0400

from [192.168.2.2]

   ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----

"|/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman request mailman"

    (reason: Service unavailable)

    (expanded from: <mailman-request@elilabs.com>)

   ----- Transcript of session follows -----

smrsh: "mailman" not available for sendmail programs (stat failed)

554 5.0.0 Service unavailable

--l67HXVaP027959.1183829611/eli.elilabs.com

Content-Type: message/delivery-status

Reporting-MTA: dns; eli.elilabs.com

Received-From-MTA: DNS; [192.168.2.2]

Arrival-Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2007 13:33:30 -0400

Final-Recipient: RFC822; mailman-request@elilabs.com

X-Actual-Recipient: X-Unix; |/usr/local/mailman/mail/mailman request mailman

Action: failed

Status: 5.5.0

Diagnostic-Code: X-Unix; 69

Last-Attempt-Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2007 13:33:31 -0400

--l67HXVaP027959.1183829611/eli.elilabs.com

Content-Type: message/rfc822

Return-Path: <rj@elilabs.com>

Received: from ezra.elilabs.com ([192.168.2.2])

   by eli.elilabs.com (8.13.7/8.13.7) with ESMTP id l67HXUaP027957

   for <mailman-request@elilabs.com>; Sat, 7 Jul 2007 13:33:30 -0400

Received: from ezra.elilabs.com (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])

   by ezra.elilabs.com (8.14.0/8.13.4) with ESMTP id l67HXVFY004623

   for <mailman-request@elilabs.com>; Sat, 7 Jul 2007 13:33:31 -0400

Received: (from rj@localhost)

   by ezra.elilabs.com (8.14.0/8.14.0/Submit) id l67HXUIQ004617;

   Sat, 7 Jul 2007 13:33:30 -0400

From: "Robert J. Brown" <rj@elilabs.com>

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Message-ID: <18063.52841.558702.989955@gargle.gargle.HOWL>

Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2007 13:33:29 -0400

To: mailman-request@elilabs.com

Subject: help

X-Mailer: VM 7.17 under 21.4 (patch 20) "Double Solitaire" XEmacs Lucid

X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.7/3607/Thu Jul  5 19:51:19 2007 on eli

X-Virus-Status: Clean

--l67HXVaP027959.1183829611/eli.elilabs.com--

```

Yet I did receive the initial email from the listserver without problem.

What gives?  Is the wiki out of date?  Is mailman suffering from bit rot?  Or did I just mess up somehow?   :Evil or Very Mad: 

----------

## di1bert

Sounds to me like there is a configuration problem with Apache. Start by checking your error_log in /var/log/apache (YMMV) to see why it's dying.

I can't really help you with Sendmail as I've only used MM with Exim and Postfix. 

Let's get your web interface up and running and we'll tackle Sendmail after that. Personally I'd move to

something like Exim or Postfix as at least their config files are in english and not the

sendmail.cf file which _really_ scares me  :Smile: 

-m

----------

## Moriah

Well, I've been running sendmail here for over 12 years now, and on all the machines on the network here, so I really am not a bit inclined to change it now.

Anyway, regarding the web interface, document root is not it the usual (now anyway) gentoo place at /var/www/... but it is instead at /home/httpd/... where it was many long years ago before I switched to gentoo.  Again, the pain of switching all that legacy stuff prevents me from changing it.

Nonetheless, I could not find the mailman starting web page file anywhere in my filesystem, as I did an updatedb (250 gb filesystem... Whew!) and then a locate to look for it, and it does not appear to be anywhere.  I fiddled with it for a couple of hours, then had to get ready to go out of town.  

I am now 400 miles away, but I have vnc via ssh connected to things back home, so I can do just about anything short of a reboot or firewall reconfiguration or mess with routing tables.  If youy can suggest where I should look for the missing mailman startup page, that might be a good place to begin.

Thanks!   :Very Happy: 

----------

## di1bert

If I recall correctly the Mailman pages are all Python generated. Adding the following to your

Apache configuration should take care of it:

```

ScriptAlias /mailman/ "/usr/local/mailman/cgi-bin/"

Alias /pipermail/ "/usr/local/mailman/archives/public/"

```

This is an example from one of my servers so you'll have to modify to suit 

your setup....

HTH

-m

----------

## Moriah

Well, the aliases resulted in 

```
[Tue Jul 10 22:19:52 2007] [warn] The ScriptAlias directive in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf at line 837 will probably never match because it overlaps an earlier ScriptAlias.

[Tue Jul 10 22:19:52 2007] [warn] The Alias directive in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf at line 838 will probably never match because it overlaps an earlier Alias.                                                                                  [ ok ]

```

But a couple of symlinks did the trick.    :Cool: 

However, over one hurdle only to see the next one.  When I try to create a list, I get:

```
Error: Unknown virtual host: www.elilabs.com

```

So what's the deal about this?  The host www.elilabs.com is my server, and it is not virtual.  Does it need to be?  Why?  :Surprised: 

----------

## di1bert

Not sure about that one....Is it coming from Apache or Sendmail ?

-m

----------

## Moriah

I am not where I can get to the log files right now, but I think it was from squerrel mail to syslog.  I will check tonight and get back to you.

Thanks for the help!

----------

## semen

I had the problem that I could not acces to mailmain website.

I saw in apache log file attempt to invoke directory as script: /usr/lib/mailman/cgi-bin/

and did not understand what it mean until I did try the subdirectory http://www.example.com/mailman/admin/mailman.

than works fine.

my mistake was that I meant http://www.example.com/mailman/ works also, but did not

----------

## timeBandit

Moved from Portage & Programming to Networking & Security.

Not a Portage problem, so moved here.

----------

