Hello, I'm trying to get mailman3 working on Ubuntu.
I'm following these instructions: https://docs.list.org/en/latest/install/virtualenv.html#setup-virtualenv
I've gotten to the point where I can successfully su - to the mailman3 user, and manually start the mailman3 process with the startup command.
However, when I follow the systemctl startup scripts as per the instructions at the URL above, it get stuck in the startup ... forever
Starting from the command line works great!
(venv) mailman@arcus:~$ /opt/mailman/venv/bin/mailman start Starting Mailman's master runner Generating MTA alias maps (venv) mailman@arcus:~$ (venv) mailman@arcus:~$ /opt/mailman/venv/bin/mailman status GNU Mailman is running (master pid: 47815)
But when I try to start it from systemctl, it just hangs forever... root@arcus:/etc/nginx# systemctl start mailman3
If I background it, and check it out from systemctl status, I get that It's stuck in the startup mode.
root@arcus:/etc/nginx# systemctl status mailman3 ● mailman3.service - GNU Mailing List Manager Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/mailman3.service; enabled; preset: enabled) Active: activating (start) since Wed 2025-08-13 23:12:05 UTC; 29s ago Process: 49024 ExecStart=/opt/mailman/venv/bin/mailman start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) Tasks: 17 (limit: 4605) Memory: 878.0M (peak: 878.5M) CPU: 11.030s
I've tried this with and without the forking entry in the systemctl configuration.
No matter what I do, it's stuck in the ... Active: activating (start) since Wed 2025-08-13 23:13:37 UTC; 27s ago
What am I missing? root@arcus:/etc/nginx# cat /etc/systemd/system/mailman3.service [Unit] Description=GNU Mailing List Manager After=syslog.target network.target postgresql.service
[Service] Type=forking PIDFile=/opt/mailman/mm/var/master.pid User=mailman Group=mailman Environment="MAILMAN_CONFIG_FILE=/etc/mailman3/mailman.cfg" ExecStart=/opt/mailman/venv/bin/mailman start ExecReload=/opt/mailman/venv/bin/mailman restart ExecStop=/opt/mailman/venv/bin/mailman stop Restart=on-failure RestartSec=15
[Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
root@arcus:/#
-- Piet Barber http://www.pietbarber.com/ http://blog.pietbarber.com/