Yay, it works!

[altivo]

The mailing list server I've been setting up since Tuesday achieved full functionality today. There were two problems still holding it up. One was a Linux thing, about group identifiers and what turns out to be a glitch in the documentation for the Gnu Mailman software. That was resolved in the end by tweaking the sendmail daemon into pretending to be someone else. I hate the sendmail.cf file, though. It has to be the ugliest configuration file in all of UNIX land.

The large obstacle was the firewall. We use a WatchGuard X700, as I think I've mentioned recently. The irritating thing about that is that though it runs Linux as its internal operating system, the interface was designed entirely for Windows users and in fact can only be run on a Windows machine. Worse, it does everything with little dialog boxes and graphical thingamabobs. I hate that sort of interface. It drives me crazy. You can't see what's going on, they love to use their own cutesy terminology for things instead of industry standard words, and they tend to hide a lot of what's going on when they can. So, when you want to open an external port for SMTP, they ask you a bunch of questions that are essentially meaningless unless you already know their peculiar jargon. The User Guide is incomplete, and constantly tells you to read web pages that are no longer there, or refers you to a "Reference Guide" that wasn't supplied with the device and interface software.

Consequently, I did a lot of floundering around. I would arrive at a configuration where the web-based interface to Mailman was working, but the mail sending function didn't work. Or vice versa. The worst was one that stopped all the web browsers on our network from working, though it did let the mailing list server function. Duh. Not what I wanted.

So the reason it all took nearly three days was that I couldn't mess freely with the firewall until this morning, when the library was closed. Whenever you make major changes, the firewall must be rebooted (god knows why... when I change my iptables definitions I sure don't have to reboot Linux) and rebooting interrupts ALL the internet connections on the network.

But it got resolved this morning after about four restarts of the firewall. I swear when that box finally croaks I will replace it with an old desktop PC running Linux and two NIC cards. The performance will be just as good and the interface will be far less obtuse.

So now the consortium mailing lists can be set up. That is, as soon as we settle the controversy over whether "reply" should reply to the whole list or just to the sender of the message to which you are replying. I vote for the sender only, and "reply all" goes to the whole list. That seems rational, but some people want it the other way, and of course it can only be one way or the other. Bah. Computers waste more time than they save.

Oh, and I did go ahead and mail the letter of interest to the library board.

Comments

[corelog.livejournal.com]

Well, congrats on getting it working, at any rate. :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I feel entitled to a day or two off for this one, though I won't get it for a while. It's especially hard to concentrate on this sort of problem with three or four coworkers shrieking at each other about baby pictures or baby clothes or some such thing.

[damnbear.livejournal.com]

Be glad they didn't bring in the shrieking baby to show off instead...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Alas, we get enough of those too.

[damnbear.livejournal.com]

So do we at the outpatient lab. They make such interesting screams about getting poked with a needle...

[bonnie-tiler.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the letter of interest, you could do some good in that seat, I think..

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Or wreak a little havok. I'm not always a "go with the flow" kind of person, as you probably noticed. ;D

[niccat23.livejournal.com]

Bravo on the lists--didn't know you were doing that. AUTOCAT just had a whole discussion on reply all vs. reply to sender. :-)

GL on the lib board thing!

[I caved and signed up for LJ...]

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, Peter and I decided that it would make sense for me to host the lists here at Harvard. Look for an official announcement later today. Everyone gets to sign up once more, but at least this time it's the same software we had and works the same way. Welcome to LJ. ;D

[hrrunka]

Yeah, sendmail.cf has to contain some of the most archane configuration statement syntax ever devised. I have a copy of the "bat" book somewhere to prove I once had to delve into it...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Any configuration file that is so bad it contains a comment at the top saying "Don't try to edit this" is definitely in bad shape.

Worrying about sendmail is secondary now. The machine has been on the internet for 24 hours and the script kiddies are starting to hammer on it. I've got to make sure that apache and sendmail have all the latest security fixes in place.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

The woe of the library hoss.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It's done. The would-be hackers are the nuisance now. Script kiddies with lists of common passwords. Spammers looking for open relays. So far, so good.