On 8/16/25 7:53 PM, Wikinaut wrote:

there is no new ~/mm/var/logs/mailman.log file. I gzip-ed the old one and triggered the bug again.

Your original error says that mailmanclient sent a request to mailman core's REST API and received a 500 response. Mailman core should log the error that produces the 500 response.

If it doesn't, perhaps there is some permissions issue preventing writing the log.

-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan

I created another (venv) and decided to go through all steps of a full installation.

→→→ it works!

Odhiambo Washington via Mailman-users writes:

On Sat, Aug 16, 2025 at 11:40?PM Wikinaut <mail@tgries.de> wrote:

...

I created another (venv) and decided to go through all steps of a full installation.

With a Python version change, I discovered that creating a clean virtual environment is the best approach.

As far as I know the venv module doesn't support a major (3.x to 3.y) version change at all. But even within a major version, if you're going to take the (slight) risk of a Python upgrade for the unknown benefits of the Python upgrade, you likely want the same for the whole suite of requirements.

-- GNU Mailman consultant (installation, migration, customization) Sirius Open Source https://www.siriusopensource.com/ Software systems consulting in Europe, North America, and Japan

On 8/16/25 8:14 PM, Wikinaut wrote:

and mails appear not to be processed any more.

One mail came through, but look to the third lien of the footer, some variables are not replaced by their values:

berlin mailing list -- berlin@xxxxx.de To unsubscribe send an email to berlin-leave@xxxxx.de %(web_page_url)slistinfo/%(_internal_name)s

This line is from a msg_footer imported from Mailman 2.1 by 'mailman import21'. The substitutions are not replaced because they are MM 2.1 syntax which MM 3 doesn't recognize.

If you have Mailman core >=3.3.10 and have set the Base Url parameter for the domain, you can replace that line in the template with simply

$mailinglist_url

If your Mailman core is older, you need to hardcode that as something like

https://example.com/mailman3/lists/$list_id

I'm only guessing here, but I suspect that you have some directories/files in the /opt/mailman/mm/var/templates/ hierarchy with mode and ownership such that they aren't readable by the Mailman user.

-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan

On 8/18/25 12:06 PM, Wikinaut wrote:

Thank you. As I need to go through ~20 mailing lists, is there any way to programmatically also modify the templates?

I could not find a script for doing this but it would nice to have, as I managed, as known, to write and to run scripts, which is very helpful (because we re-generate the _whole_ mailsystem daily if there are changes in our membership database).

If you want to use default templates for everything, just remove everything under /opt/mailman/mm/var/templates/.

If you want a custom footer for all lists, remove list:member:generic:footer.txt from all the /opt/mailman/mm/var/templates/lists/LIST_ID/LC/ directories and create the footer at /opt/mailman/mm/var/templates/site/LC/list:member:generic:footer.txt

-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan

On 8/29/25 09:26, Wikinaut wrote:

Just two follow-up questions.

1. Is this documented somewhere (where)?

See https://docs.mailman3.org/projects/mailman/en/latest/src/mailman/rest/docs/t...

Also https://gitlab.com/mailman/mailman/-/blob/master/src/mailman/utilities/i18n....

2. If I create /opt/mailman/mm/var/templates/site/LC/list:member:generic:footer.txt as suggested, I suppose that this then the new default for those lists, where no distinct /opt/mailman/mm/var/templates/lists/LIST_ID/LC/list:member:generic:footer.txt footer exists . Pls. can you confirm, or correct me?

That's correct as long as there is no /opt/mailman/mm/var/templates/domains/MAIL_HOST/LC/list:member:generic:footer.txt

-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan

On Fri, Sep 5, 2025 at 12:42 PM Wikinaut <mail@tgries.de> wrote:

I have standard installation Tom Sawyer 3.3.10.

I setup

base_url: https://mydomain/mailman3/lists

in mailman.cfg and restarted mailman3.

The variable is however not replaced, otherwise than you said above, and now simply "$mailinglist_url" is printed unreplaced in the footer.

What did I wrong? Where exactly is base_url to be set, I searched for it but could not find a suited information in the mailman documentation.

Looking at the official documentation for virtualenv, that base_url is is not anywhere in mailman.cfg. I only see if going into /etc/mailman3/mailman-hyperkitty.cfg. Because you mention something about the footer, I suppose you are talking about the variables in in templates, no? In which case, the file you are looking at editing (as previously told) is /opt/mailman/mm/var/templates/domains/YOUR_MAIL_HOST_HERE/en/list:member:generic:footer.txt (/en assumes English, so replace accordingly).

-- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223 In an Internet failure case, the #1 suspect is a constant: DNS. "Oh, the cruft.", egrep -v '^$|^.*#' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :-) [How to ask smart questions: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html]

On Fri, Sep 5, 2025 at 1:02 PM Wikinaut <mail@tgries.de> wrote:

I was directly replying to Marks answer, which does not work for me:

22:40 ...

This line is from a msg_footer imported from Mailman 2.1 by 'mailman import21'. The substitutions are not replaced because they are MM 2.1 syntax which MM 3 doesn't recognize.

If you have Mailman core >=3.3.10 and have set the Base Url parameter for the domain, you can replace that line in the template with simply

$mailinglist_url

If your Mailman core is older, you need to hardcode that as something like

https://example.com/mailman3/lists/$list_id

I'm only guessing here, but I suspect that you have some directories/files in the /opt/mailman/mm/var/templates/ hierarchy with mode and ownership such that they aren't readable by the Mailman user.

Let me explain this to you the way I understand it. I have a mailing list host - lists.kictanet.or.ke. This is the domain. I have a mailing list - kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke. BTW, this is a real list. You can access it at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mm/lists/kictanet.lists.kictanet.or.ke/ Breaking this down, I have the following layout in the file system:

root@eu:/opt/mailman/mm/var/templates# pwd
/opt/mailman/mm/var/templates
root@eu:/opt/mailman/mm/var/templates# ls -al
total 20
drwxr-xr-x  5 mailman mailman 4096 Aug  4  2024 .
drwxr-xr-x 13 mailman mailman 4096 Sep  2 16:35 ..
drwxr-xr-x  3 mailman mailman 4096 Mar 20  2023 domains
drwxr-xr-x 11 mailman mailman 4096 Aug  4  2024 lists
drwxr-xr-x  3 mailman mailman 4096 Aug  4  2024 site

root@eu:/opt/mailman/mm/var/templates# ls -al lists/
total 44
drwxr-xr-x 11 mailman mailman 4096 Aug  4  2024 .
drwxr-xr-x  5 mailman mailman 4096 Aug  4  2024 ..
drwxr-xr-x  3 mailman mailman 4096 Aug  4  2024
kictanet.lists.kictanet.or.ke
drwxr-xr-x  3 mailman mailman 4096 Aug  4  2024 users.exim4u.org

root@eu:/opt/mailman/mm/var/templates# ls -al lists/
kictanet.lists.kictanet.or.ke/
total 12
drwxr-xr-x  3 mailman mailman 4096 Aug  4  2024 .
drwxr-xr-x 11 mailman mailman 4096 Aug  4  2024 ..
drwxr-xr-x  2 mailman mailman 4096 Jul 14 15:47 en
root@eu:/opt/mailman/mm/var/templates# ls -al lists/
kictanet.lists.kictanet.or.ke/en/
total 60
drwxr-xr-x 2 mailman mailman 4096 Jul 14 15:47 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 mailman mailman 4096 Aug  4  2024 ..
-rw------- 1 mailman mailman  607 Jul 14 15:41
domain:admin:notice:new-list.txt
-rw------- 1 mailman mailman  337 Jul 14 15:41 list:admin:action:post.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 mailman mailman  299 Jul 14 15:41
list:admin:action:subscribe.txt
-rw------- 1 mailman mailman  290 Jul 14 15:42 list:admin:notice:pending.txt
-rw------- 1 mailman mailman  226 Jul 14 15:46 list:member:digest:footer.txt
-rw------- 1 mailman mailman  448 Jul 14 15:42
list:member:digest:masthead.txt
-rw------- 1 mailman mailman 1417 Jul 14 15:43
list:member:generic:footer.txt
-rw------- 1 mailman mailman 1417 Jul 14 15:43
list:member:regular:footer.txt
-rw------- 1 mailman mailman  822 Jul 14 15:44 list:user:action:invite.txt
-rw------- 1 mailman mailman  955 Jul 14 15:44
list:user:action:subscribe.txt
-rw------- 1 mailman mailman  239 Jul 14 15:44 list:user:notice:post.txt
-rw------- 1 mailman mailman  798 Jul 14 15:45 list:user:notice:probe.txt
-rw------- 1 mailman mailman  631 Jul 14 15:45 list:user:notice:welcome.txt
root@eu:/opt/mailman/mm/var/templates#

Opening the file 'lists/
kictanet.lists.kictanet.or.ke/en/list\:member\:generic\:footer.txt', it
contains the text below and other mundane texts we'd love our subscribers
to see on the footer:

${display_name} mailing list -- ${listname} To unsubscribe send an email to ${short_listname}-leave@${domain} Unsubscribe or change your options at: $mailinglist_url Archived at: $hyperkitty_url

As you can see, all the files are owned by mailman:mailman in my case.


-- 
Best regards,
Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
Nairobi,KE
+254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223
 In an Internet failure case, the #1 suspect is a constant: DNS.
"Oh, the cruft.", egrep -v '^$|^.*#' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :-)
[How to ask smart questions:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html]

On 9/5/25 03:37, Wikinaut wrote:

It's going about the variable $mailinglist_url in footers. Mark exlained, that in mm >= 3.3.10 this placeholder can be used in footers, given, that you have set up $base_url.

This does not work for me. I need to know, WHERE to set $base_url to make $mailinglist_url become working and replaced in footers.

The base url setting for this is an attribute of the domain. Setting it in the Domains view of Postorius or via REST will not be available until the next release, I.e. Mailman core 3.3.11, Postorius 1.3.14, Mailman Client 3.3.6.

In the mean time with Mailman core 3.3.10, you can set this via mailman shell or by directly updating the domain table in the database.

In mailman shell

...

...

d = getUtility(IDomainManager).get('mydomain') d.base_url = 'https://mydomain/mailman3/lists' commit()

-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan

On September 21, 2025 12:18:56 PM PDT, Wikinaut <mail@tgries.de> wrote:

What's is going wrong here? Are the templates in the database but were not read from the filesystem? What steps do I have to perform to make the new site-templates become effective?

When you set a template in Postorius, the template is stored in the database and an entry is made in Mailman core's template table with a uri to the Postorius API to get the template. As long as this entry is there, that's the template you get.

Delete the template from Postorius and you will get the template from the file system.

-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> Sent from my Not_an_iThing with standards compliant, open source software.

On 9/21/25 14:49, Wikinaut wrote:

Do you have a programmatic way to delete n ( n > 20) such entries in Postorius, e.g. via a python script + REST to loop through all lists and perhaps to exclude a few based on a small condition (like a text found in old template and/or list name)?

I don't have anything off hand, and in the time it would take me to create one and for you to customize it for your exceptions, you could probably go through well over 20 lists/templates via the web UI.

-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan

Okay, I spotted my mistake: I wrote "sites" but I needs to be "site".

Problem solved.

Mark, this is great news, a little bit like expected! Thanks again for clarifying the term "generic" here. It's helpful to have it for definition of both, "regular" and "digest".

Is this documented somewhere? I think, I need to create a wiki for mailman3.

Mark Sapiro writes:

On 9/22/25 05:21, Wikinaut wrote:

...

Mark, this is great news, a little bit like expected! Thanks again for clarifying the term "generic" here. It's helpful to have it for definition of both, "regular" and "digest".

Is this documented somewhere?

I don't think so.

I thought I had seen it "somewhere", but I can't find it now. It should be here: https://docs.mailman3.org/projects/mailman/en/release-3.1/src/mailman/rest/d....

See https://gitlab.com/mailman/mailman/-/issues/1243.

Besides templates.html, this should be documented briefly in the forms for changing the generic, regular, and digest templates, something as simple as adding "if empty, falls back to generic:template" would do for the regular and digest specific templates, and "shadowed by regular:template and digest:template" for the generic template.

Note that that is in the developer's documentation for the REST API. :-( We really need to reorganize the docs to be more discoverable for typical admins.

...

I think, I need to create a wiki for mailman3.

We have a wiki at https://wiki.list.org/ for all versions of Mailman. See the first paragraph at that page for info on obtaining write access.

But note that this is *not* appropriate for the wiki, which is more oriented to FAQs and news. Wikis are fine for formal documentation, but only if that's the ground truth. For better or worse, we chose not to do that.

-- GNU Mailman consultant (installation, migration, customization) Sirius Open Source https://www.siriusopensource.com/ Software systems consulting in Europe, North America, and Japan