February 2026 - Mailman-users - lists.mailman3.org

[Mailman-Users] VERP on Mailman 3
by Stephen J. Turnbull Feb. 8, 2026

Feb. 8, 2026

Redirecting to Mailman 3 users <mailman-users(a)mailman3.org>. John Price via Mailman-Users writes: > I attempted to setup VERP on Mailman3 and it doesn't seem to be > changing the sender address. Please explain why you think that. Note: The sender address that is changed is the envelope address. You won't see it in the message headers in most cases. There should be relevant log messages in your MTA log that have the envelope sender as "from=<...sender...>" in the case of Postfix. I forget what Exim4 and Sendmail use. > What else should I provide that will help? - Log entries from Mailman and the MTA pertaining to one or more messages that should have been VERPed. - What is your MTA? - What is the setting for recipient_delimiter (if Postfix, or the equivalent for other MTAs)? - How did you install Mailman? Note that if you installed from Debian packages, the first thing you should do is contact the Debian maintainers for their packages. The rest of this message is preserved from the original post to mailman-users(a)python.org for completeness. Steve > I don't know what the problem is. > > I am using the '_' character for my verp delimiter. This is what I > have been using with mailman2 for about 15 years. It has been > working perfectly. > > I'm using Postfix 3.10.5. > > $ mailman conf | grep verp > [mta] verp_confirm_format: ${address}_${cookie} > [mta] verp_confirm_regexp: ^(.*<)?(?P<addr>[^_]+?)_(?P<cookie>[^@]+)@.*$ > [mta] verp_confirmations: yes > [mta] verp_delimiter: _ > [mta] verp_delivery_interval: 1 > [mta] verp_format: ${bounces}_${local}=${domain} > [mta] verp_personalized_deliveries: yes > [mta] verp_probe_format: ${bounces}_${token}@${domain} > [mta] verp_probe_regexp: ^(?P<bounces>[^_]+?)_(?P<token>[^@]+)@.*$ > [mta] verp_probes: yes > [mta] verp_regexp: ^(?P<bounces>[^_]+?)_(?P<local>[^=]+)=(?P<domain>[^@]+)@.*$ > > $ mailman info > GNU Mailman 3.3.10 (Tom Sawyer) > Python 3.13.5 (main, Jun 25 2025, 18:55:22) [GCC 14.2.0] > config file: /etc/mailman3/mailman.cfg > db url: mysql+pymysql://mm3:blah@localhost/mailman3?charset=utf8&use_unicode=1 > devmode: DISABLED > REST root url: https://localhost:8001/3.1/ > REST credentials: admin:password > > $ cat /etc/debian_version > 13.3 > > TIA, > John -- GNU Mailman consultant (installation, migration, customization) Sirius Open Source https://www.siriusopensource.com/ Software systems consulting in Europe, North America, and Japan

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Permissions Error on /var/mail/mailman
by dap1＠bellsouth.net Feb. 5, 2026

Feb. 5, 2026

I am going in circles between postfix issues and mailman. However, before I continue with postfix debugging I want to resolve this first as it may be related for all I know. I'm getting this error in the postfix mail log: 2026-02-01T11:00:10.106626-05:00 dap002 postfix/local[113730]: 01623500076: to=<mailman(a)myhost.localdomain>, orig_to=<mailman>, relay=local, delay=0.16, de lays=0.11/0.01/0/0.04, dsn=5.2.0, status=bounced (cannot update mailbox /var/mail/mailman for user mailman. cannot open file: Permission denied) I'm not sure why mailman is trying to write to that file but it is owned by root:mail. It is obvious why permission is denied to mailman. Is that directory really part of mailman3 and if so what should ownership and permissions be? If not then why is mailman trying to write to it? That path does not appear in any of the files in /etc/mailman3.

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Is there an option to "disable" a list temporarily? (feature request?!)
by Christian Schneider Feb. 4, 2026

Feb. 4, 2026

Hello dear Mailman Team, I scanned through the web interface of my mailman instance... and I did not find an option to disable a list temporarily ("sending" and "access to web interface")... This might come in handy when a list is abused for sending spams or when a list owner wants his/her list to be removed... Instead of removing the list instantly I would disable it for three months first... (You never know with users... ;-) ) Preferably I would backup the list (settings and members) and the archives, but as seen in the discussion there is actually no backup mechanism for lists... Is there an option to disable a list (except from resetting passwords and remove/disable mail aliases)? If not I'd like to hand this in as a feature request... xD Thank you very much and kind regards Christian

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Request for ideas and mentors for Summer of Code 2026
by Stephen J. Turnbull Feb. 3, 2026

Feb. 3, 2026

Hi all, The GNU Mailman Project is applying for Google Summer of Code 2026[1]. Our Ideas Page[2] has been updated. We're still open for mentors, of course, and ideas. There's no deadline, but to be most useful it would be helpful to have these suggestions by February 19 when Google announces selected organizations. Summer of Code projects must involve substantial amounts of new code. The effort involved should be 150 to 200 hours (although programmers' skills may be anywhere from "novice" to "10x", so the amount of code can vary more than that!) Projects which are primarily documentation, user interface skinning, or tests are usually ineligible. Please send those to me by email or on this list if you think the idea would be of interest to other Mailman users, or might trigger suggestions for improvement from them. We are also interested in "tiny" tasks which are suitable for demonstrating interest and making the applicant familiar with our review process. If you have some minor annoyance (whether bug or missing feature) that you think might take an experienced Mailman dev an hour, this is a good chance to get some eyes on it. For these it would be most helpful if you file an issue on the relevant project (usually core[3], Postorius[4], or HyperKitty[5]), and mark it "easy" and "GSoC", and "beginner-friendly" if appropriate. (The difference between "easy" and "beginner-friendly" is "easy" means low effort, while "beginner-friendly" means it does not require prior knowledge of Mailman internals or non-stdlib Python modules such as SQLAlchemy, Zope, or Django.) Documentation and testing tasks are welcome here. Looking forward to your ideas! Steve Footnotes: [1] https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/ [2] https://wiki.list.org/DEV/Google%20Summer%20of%20Code%202026 [3] https://gitlab.com/mailman/mailman [4] https://gitlab.com/mailman/postorius [5] https://gitlab.com/mailman/hyperkitty -- GNU Mailman consultant (installation, migration, customization) Sirius Open Source https://www.siriusopensource.com/ Software systems consulting in Europe, North America, and Japan

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