Mailman

Problem reported for mailman 2.1.6rc4
With postfix 2:2.0.16-14.RHEL3

When installing mailman 2.1.6rc1 using postfix MTA and
"Integrating Postfix and Mailman" as described inthe
installation document, I encountered a problem that the
aliases.db file was created without group write
capability. This was not detected by check_perms.
(Even on re-reading, it's not obvious to me that g+w
permissions are required, though that became pretty
obvious when I tracked the error log failure report
when attempting to create a new mailing list.)

Because I messed around a bit with that installation,
I've verified the problem with check_perms on a working
2.1.6rc4 installation, by resetting the groupwrite
permission, thus:

The following is executed as user mailman in dirtectory
/var/mailman/data:
[[
bash-2.05b$ ls -al
total 60
drwxrwsr-x 2 mailman mailman 4096 May 18 14:31 .
drwxrwsr-x 9 mailman mailman 4096 Apr 21 18:36 ..
-rw-r----- 1 mailman mailman 41 Apr 29 13:54
adm.pw
-rw-rw---- 1 mailman mailman 4922 May 4 16:25
aliases
-rw-rw---- 1 mailman mailman 12288 May 4 16:25
aliases.db
-rw-r----- 1 mailman mailman 41 Apr 22 15:07
creator.pw
-rw-r--r-- 1 mailman mailman 10 May 18 14:32
last_mailman_version
-rw-rw---- 1 mailman mailman 6 May 12 09:19
master-qrunner.pid
-rw-r--r-- 1 mailman mailman 14110 May 18 14:31
sitelist.cfg
bash-2.05b$
bash-2.05b$ /home/mailman/bin/check_perms
No problems found

(This is a normal working configuration from which I
started)

bash-2.05b$ chmod g-w aliases*
bash-2.05b$ /home/mailman/bin/check_perms
/var/mailman/data/aliases permissions must be 066x (got
0100640)
Problems found: 1
Re-run as mailman (or root) with -f flag to fix

(check_perms notices the problem with aliases, but not
with aliases.db)

bash-2.05b$ ls -al
total 60
drwxrwsr-x 2 mailman mailman 4096 May 18 14:31 .
drwxrwsr-x 9 mailman mailman 4096 Apr 21 18:36 ..
-rw-r----- 1 mailman mailman 41 Apr 29 13:54
adm.pw
-rw-r----- 1 mailman mailman 4922 May 4 16:25
aliases
-rw-r----- 1 mailman mailman 12288 May 4 16:25
aliases.db
-rw-r----- 1 mailman mailman 41 Apr 22 15:07
creator.pw
-rw-r--r-- 1 mailman mailman 10 May 18 14:32
last_mailman_version
-rw-rw---- 1 mailman mailman 6 May 12 09:19
master-qrunner.pid
-rw-r--r-- 1 mailman mailman 14110 May 18 14:31
sitelist.cfg

bash-2.05b$ chmod g+w aliases
bash-2.05b$ /home/mailman/bin/check_perms
No problems found
bash-2.05b$ ls -al
total 60
drwxrwsr-x 2 mailman mailman 4096 May 18 14:31 .
drwxrwsr-x 9 mailman mailman 4096 Apr 21 18:36 ..
-rw-r----- 1 mailman mailman 41 Apr 29 13:54
adm.pw
-rw-rw---- 1 mailman mailman 4922 May 4 16:25
aliases
-rw-r----- 1 mailman mailman 12288 May 4 16:25
aliases.db
-rw-r----- 1 mailman mailman 41 Apr 22 15:07
creator.pw
-rw-r--r-- 1 mailman mailman 10 May 18 14:32
last_mailman_version
-rw-rw---- 1 mailman mailman 6 May 12 09:19
master-qrunner.pid
-rw-r--r-- 1 mailman mailman 14110 May 18 14:31
sitelist.cfg

(No report from check_perms despite missing group write
permission on aliases.db)
]]