Subject: mailman: Incorrect properties of symbolic links makes it crash hard on startup
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 03:45:45 +0200 (CEST)
Package: mailman
Version: 1:2.1.11-2
Severity: grave
The Debianization of Mailman 2.1.11 has failed on a critical aspect, the
properties of /var/lib/mailman/locks and /var/lib/mailman/logs made it
impossible for Mailman to operate properly. The symbolic links used to point
to ../../locks/mailman and ../../log/mailman (respectively) was not sufficient
to make Mailman operational. The locks failed directly, causing Mailman to fail
on start. The logs made it die within a minute. Removing those links and
replacing them with the (in Mailman context) traditional locks and logs
directories and by checking the properties of those useing
/var/lib/mailman/bin/check_perms made Mailman operational. Thus, this is a
workaround to use while the package maintainer fix things up.
It is a serious bug that /var/lib/mailman/bin/check_perms does not run without
problems, as this script is intended to avoid this situation, and it should be
run with the -f flag at upgrades etc. to ensure everything including user
data is properly setup.
This bug is mainly caused by the wish to keep the standard filestructure.
However, if the symbolic links can not be made to function properly, then the
directories should be kept at /var/lib/mailman with proper bits and then
symbolic links point into that directory rather than out of. Unless a stable
symbolic link fix can be made, all directories needs to move "home" rather than
be distributed out.
If the proposed method is unacceptable, then it still needs to be applied until
upstream has handled the bug.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Versions of packages mailman depends on:
ii adduser 3.109 add and remove users and groups
ii apache2 2.2.9-6 Apache HTTP Server metapackage
ii apache2-mpm-prefork [httpd] 2.2.9-6 Apache HTTP Server - traditional n
ii cron 3.0pl1-104 management of regular background p
ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.23 Debian configuration management sy
ii libc6 2.7-13 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii logrotate 3.7.1-3 Log rotation utility
ii lsb-base 3.2-19 Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip
ii postfix [mail-transport-agent 2.5.2-2 High-performance mail transport ag
ii pwgen 2.06-1 Automatic Password generation
ii python 2.5.2-2 An interactive high-level object-o
ii python-support 0.8.5 automated rebuilding support for P
ii ucf 3.007 Update Configuration File: preserv
mailman recommends no packages.
Versions of packages mailman suggests:
ii listadmin 2.40-1 command line mailman moderator que
ii lynx 2.8.7dev9-1.2 Text-mode WWW Browser (transitiona
ii spamassassin 3.2.5-1 Perl-based spam filter using text
-- debconf information:
* mailman/used_languages: da en fi no sv
* mailman/create_site_list:
* mailman/gate_news: false
mailman/update_passwords:
* mailman/site_languages: da (Danish), en (English), fi (Finnish), no (Norwegian), sv (Swedish)
* mailman/queue_files_present:
* mailman/default_server_language: en (English)
mailman/update_aliases:
Hello Magnus,
On Thursday 7 August 2008 03:45, Magnus Danielson wrote:
> The Debianization of Mailman 2.1.11 has failed on a critical aspect, the
> properties of /var/lib/mailman/locks and /var/lib/mailman/logs made it
> impossible for Mailman to operate properly. The symbolic links used to
> point to ../../locks/mailman and ../../log/mailman (respectively) was not
> sufficient to make Mailman operational. The locks failed directly, causing
> Mailman to fail on start. The logs made it die within a minute.
Thank you for your report. However, here I don't experience the problem you
are sketching: doing a fresh install I can start mailman and it keeps
running. The logs are there and it doesn't die.
I'm a bit puzzled by what you describe: mailman failed to start but died after
a minute? If it fails to start it dies immediately, or do you mean something
differently? Just for the record, mailman has had these symbolic links in
this fasion for years. Of course something could have changed in Mailman, but
it isn't a new setup.
In any case this bug needs further research to decide where the problem lies
exactly because, as said, it works here so it isn't a generic problem that
occurs for everyone. I'm off for a few days, perhaps someone else of the team
can get to some more details in the meantime. Otherwise I'll pick it up when
I get back.
> Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Just a note, probably not related to this issue, but you're running a kernel
from stable on an unstable system. I don't think that is a supported
combination.
cheers,
Thijs
Hi Magnus,
On Thursday 7 August 2008 15:18, Thijs Kinkhorst wrote:
> Thank you for your report. However, here I don't experience the problem you
> are sketching: doing a fresh install I can start mailman and it keeps
> running. The logs are there and it doesn't die.
I did a completely fresh install of Mailman on a completely fresh system and
it works as expected. I created mailinglists, sent and received mails without
problems.
I'm not denouncing your problem but I do not believe it is impacting common
usage, so I don't think it's appropriate to keep it at 'grave' severity.
Because I can't reproduce the problem here I have a hard time debugging it.
It would be of great help if you could try to debug it on your side to see if
we can get any indication on what's so specific about your situation creating
the problem.
cheers,
Thijs
Severity set to `important' from `grave'
Request was from Thijs Kinkhorst <[email protected]>
to controlbugs.debian.org.
(Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:45:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).
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