The mailing list for listmasters using Sympa

[Nick Holden <address@concealed>]

Hi Olivier,

Got it! It was, of course, user error.

First I did the grep you suggested. I got:

root@theweaa1:~# grep admin::install_aliases /var/log/sympa
Oct  8 08:54:05 theweaa1 wwsympa[1477]: admin::install_aliases :
Internal error : Incorrect call to alias_manager 

So then I knew it was indeed being called, but failing.

I thought a bit about Stuart's suggestion, and ran:

root@theweaa1:~# su sympa -s /bin/bash -c
"/home/sympa/bin/alias_manager.pl add aliastestlist unionlists.org.uk"

I got:

Can't locate Conf.pm in @INC (@INC contains:
--LIBDIR-- /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/perl/5.8.8 /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8 
/usr/lib/perl5 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/perl/5.8 /usr/share/perl/5.8 
/usr/local/lib/site_perl /usr/local/lib/perl/5.8.4 
/usr/local/share/perl/5.8.4 .) at /home/sympa/bin/alias_manager.pl line 13.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /home/sympa/bin/alias_manager.pl
line 13.

Looking at the script again, it said:

use lib '--LIBDIR--';
use Conf;
use POSIX;
require "tools.pl";
require "tt2.pl";

I changed that to:

use lib '/home/sympa/bin';
use Conf;
use POSIX;
require "tools.pl";
require "tt2.pl";

Oops!

Now it works! It might be worth the script being modified to ensure that
dumb end users like me know which bits of it need changing before we use
it. I had made a number of alterations, but missed that one...

Thanks for your help.

Nick

On Tue, 2008-09-09 at 09:21 +0200, Olivier Salaün wrote:
> Hi Nick,
> 
> The behaviour of wwsympa is the following regarding aliases management :
> 
>    1. it tries to run the alias_manager to automatically install new
>       aliases for the list.
>    2. it it fails it prints the set of mail aliases that needs to be
>       installed. We're doing so for historic reasons ; I guess it should
>       be replaced by an error message.
> 
> Now you need to determine why the alias_manager failed ; the most 
> obvious reason being privileges problems.
> You should perform a "grep admin::install_aliases /var/log/sympa" to get 
> more informations...
> 
> Nick Holden a écrit :
> > Hi Olivier,
> >
> > Thanks for the attempt to help me. I think you've missed one crucial
> > part of my email. If I call the alias_manager.pl script from the command
> > line of the server it works perfectly - creating the aliases in the
> > correct database.
> >
> > So alias_manager.pl is not failing. I think, almost certainly, that it
> > is in fact not being called at all by wwsympa, and this is what I need
> > help to understand. What might cause wwsympa not to invoke
> > alias_manager.pl?
> >
> > I will try another attempt at creating a list, with more verbose
> > logging, and see what that reveals...
> >
> > In /var/log/messages I get:
> >
> > Sep  9 07:25:33 theweaa1 wwsympa[30843]: [robot unionlists.org.uk]
> > [client 86.12.122.242] [user address@concealed]
> > do_create_list(aliastestlist,A test list which will not be
> > used,news-letter) 
> > Sep  9 07:25:33 theweaa1 wwsympa[30843]: [robot unionlists.org.uk]
> > [client 86.12.122.242] [user address@concealed] do_create_list,
> > get action : do_it  
> >
> > then
> >
> > Sep  9 07:26:05 theweaa1 task_manager[13641]: creation
> > of 
> > /address@concealed
> >  
> > Sep  9 07:26:05 theweaa1 task_manager[13641]: with
> > model /home/sympa/bin/etc/list_task_models/sync_include.ttl.task 
> >
> >
> > then
> >
> > Sep  9 07:26:09 theweaa1 task_manager[13641]: Running
> > task /home/sympa/spool/task/1084122606.ERROR.purge_user_table._global,
> > line 0 with vars ) 
> > Sep  9 07:26:09 theweaa1 task_manager[13641]: Running
> > task 
> > /address@concealed,
> >  line 0 with vars ) 
> > Sep  9 07:26:09 theweaa1 task_manager[13641]:
> > List:sync_include(aliastestlist): 0 users updated 
> > Sep  9 07:26:09 theweaa1 task_manager[13641]: line 5 of sync_include :
> > next (1220945169, INIT) 
> > Sep  9 07:26:09 theweaa1 task_manager[13641]: creation
> > of 
> > /address@concealed
> >  
> > Sep  9 07:26:09 theweaa1 task_manager[13641]: with
> > model /home/sympa/bin/etc/list_task_models/sync_include.ttl.task 
> > Sep  9 07:26:09 theweaa1 task_manager[13641]: --> new task sync_include
> > ( 9 Tue Sep 2008  08 h 26 min 09 s) 
> >
> >
> > On the screen of my web browser I get:
> >
> > Your list is created.
> > You can configure it via the admin button beside. 
> > Required aliases
> >
> >  #------------------------------ aliastestlist: list alias created 
> > aliastestlist: "| /home/sympa/bin/queue address@concealed"
> > aliastestlist-request: "| /home/sympa/bin/queue 
> > address@concealed"
> > aliastestlist-editor: "| /home/sympa/bin/queue 
> > address@concealed"
> > #aliastestlist-subscribe: "| /home/sympa/bin/queue 
> > address@concealed"
> > aliastestlist-unsubscribe: "| /home/sympa/bin/queue 
> > address@concealed"
> > aliastestlist-owner: "| /home/sympa/bin/bouncequeue 
> > address@concealed"
> >
> >  
> >
> >
> > ... but in the list of aliases within the mysql database I get nothing.
> >
> > Running from the command line...
> >
> > /home/sympa/bin/alias_manager.pl add aliastestlist unionlists.org.uk
> >
> > .. puts aliases correctly into the database, and running...
> >
> > /home/sympa/bin/alias_manager.pl del aliastestlist unionlists.org.uk
> >
> > ... takes them away again. So the script works nicely but is not called
> > to run from the wwsympa!
> >
> > Thanks if you can advise further.
> >
> > Nick
> >
> >
> > On Mon, 2008-09-08 at 14:38 +0200, Olivier Salaün wrote:
> >   
> >> Hi Nick,
> >>
> >> It seems that the log entries you provide don't correspond to the web 
> >> list creation operation you're referring to : there should be references 
> >> to the wwsympa process and the create_list feature.
> >>
> >> Apart from that, if the alias_manager.pl fails, it should have an 
> >> appropriate return code and ssaympa.fcgi should let you know. Did you 
> >> dig in you Apache error logs, just in case.
> >> The problem might be that the alias_manager.pl writes aliases in a file 
> >> and qmail looks for them in a different place ; see 
> >> http://www.sympa.org/manual/conf-parameters/part2#sendmail_aliases
> >>
> >> Nick Holden a écrit :
> >>     
> >>> >From the command line alias_manager.pl works fine on my sympa 5.3a.10
> >>> install (yeah, I know, upgrade, but I'd like to get this working
> >>> first)... but when lists are created using wwsympa.fcgi there are no
> >>> aliases created.
> >>>
> >>> And no error either:
> >>>
> >>> Sep  5 11:12:33 theweaa1 task_manager[14969]: creation
> >>> of 
> >>> /address@concealed
> >>>  
> >>> Sep  5 11:12:33 theweaa1 task_manager[14969]: with
> >>> model /home/sympa/bin/etc/list_task_models/sync_include.ttl.task 
> >>> Sep  5 11:12:33 theweaa1 task_manager[14969]: Running
> >>> task /home/sympa/spool/task/1084122606.ERROR.purge_user_table._global,
> >>> line 0 with vars ) 
> >>> Sep  5 11:12:33 theweaa1 task_manager[14969]: Running
> >>> task 
> >>> /address@concealed,
> >>>  line 0 with vars ) 
> >>> Sep  5 11:12:33 theweaa1 task_manager[14969]:
> >>> List:sync_include(aliastestlist): 0 users updated 
> >>> Sep  5 11:12:33 theweaa1 task_manager[14969]: line 5 of sync_include :
> >>> next (1220613153, INIT) 
> >>> Sep  5 11:12:33 theweaa1 task_manager[14969]: creation
> >>> of 
> >>> /address@concealed
> >>>  
> >>> Sep  5 11:12:33 theweaa1 task_manager[14969]: with
> >>> model /home/sympa/bin/etc/list_task_models/sync_include.ttl.task 
> >>> Sep  5 11:12:33 theweaa1 task_manager[14969]: --> new task sync_include
> >>> ( 5 Fri Sep 2008  12 h 12 min 33 s) 
> >>>
> >>> The list manager website says the aliases are created. But they are not.
> >>>
> >>> I'm using the qmail/vpopmail/MySQL version of alias_manager.pl but that
> >>> shouldn't be the issue, as it works fine from the command line, whether
> >>> accessed as root or non-root.
> >>>
> >>> root@theweaa1:/home/sympa/bin# ls -al alias*
> >>> -rwxr-xr-x 1 sympa sympa  4008 2008-09-05 10:39 alias_manager.pl
> >>> -rwxr-xr-x 1 sympa sympa  5997 2007-01-21 09:19 alias_manager.pl.old
> >>> -rwxr-x--- 1 sympa sympa 22802 2007-01-14 18:33 aliaswrapper
> >>>
> >>> I thought that alias_manager was set to /home/sympa/bin/alias_manager.pl
> >>> by default, yet it is clearly not being called. Or at least, not being
> >>> called effectively. I've tried adding a specific alias_manager config
> >>> setting to both /etc/sympa.conf and /etc/wwsympa.conf - and this hasn't
> >>> helped either.
> >>>
> >>> Can anyone advise why my alias_manager.pl script is not being called?
> >>>
> >>> Thank you.
> >>>
> >>> Nick
> >>>
> >>>   
> >>>       
> >>     
> >
> >   
> 
>