Subject: Bug#494065: mailman: Incorrect properties of symbolic links makes it crash hard on startup

From: [email-masked] (Magnus Danielson)
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:

---

From: Thijs Kinkhorst <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 15:18:51 +0200

Hello Magnus,

On Thursday 7 August 2008 03:45, Magnus Danielson wrote:
> 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

---

From: Thijs Kinkhorst <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:41:53 +0200

Hi Magnus,

> 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