Zimbra/Mailman "too many hops"

[lapplegate]

Sorry for the scatter-brained post, but I've been fighting this for several days and I'm at a total loss as to what to do next. I'm rusty with Zimbra and a Postfix noob (never needed to mess with it before!).

I used to use Zimbra network edition but all my mailing lists were on a qmail server with ezmlm. Unfortunately, this past summer I've been forced to move from Zimbra to Exchange, and then on Thursday my qmail server died on me. I loved using Zimbra so I moved all the qmail accounts to Zimbra but now I need a mailing list manager and ezmlm only works with qmail.

So I'm trying to get Mailman working with Zimbra, and running into a "too many hops" problem.

I followed the instructions in http://www.zimbra.com/forums/adminis...-post7858.html, except that I used the CentOS Mailman rpm and did not install from source.


CentOS 6 x86_64/ Zimbra 7.1.3 FOSS with patch P1/Mailman 2.1.12-17


Internet <=====> Exchange 2010 <====> Zimbra (with mailman)

Zimbra is a secondary server that relays everything to Exchange, has no virtual domains, is in the same domain as the Exchange server. Mail accounts on Zimbra work fine, mail is sent and received correctly. Exchange has all the Zimbra accounts configured as MailContacts, and forwards everything to Zimbra correctly, including the list addresses.

We're not using virtual domains so I didn't make any of the virtual domain changes in the howto; I can create lists and the web interface works fine. After creating a list, in the "Hit Enter to notify the mailing list administrator" step, Mailman does send the mail out, but when I try to send mail to any lists I get the "too many hops" bounces back.

In yesterday's mail report, I saw this:

Fatal Errors
------------
postalias (total: 1)
1 open /etc/mailman/aliases.db: Permission denied

I think this tells me that postfix is trying to read the mailman aliases file, so the change in the main.cf file is being picked up???

Permissions on that file were were -rw-r----- root.mailman, so I changed the permissions to -rw-r--r-- hoping that means that postfix could read the file, but that didn't fix anything.

It seems that a lot of people have gotten this to work, but everything I can find references virtual domains and some of the references are for older versions of Zimbra and I've gotten myself so confused I'm not sure where to go next.

Could some kind soul take pity on me and point me in the right direction?

Thanks so much!

Lisa

[bofh]

Man dont know where to start

you got obiviously permission problem - when you compile yourself make shure you choose the right configure options / user groups for mailman and so on
i know mailman can be a beast on regular postfix server - i didnt try it doing it on zimbra - id like to keep mailman outside on another host for several reason so cant give you much help there

usually you can do 2 ways
main.cf and read in the aliases within mailman which is the best way so you can configure new lists without manually modify aliases.db yourself

or you skip that and alias manually

[lapplegate]

Originally Posted by bofh

id like to keep mailman outside on another host for several reason so cant give you much help there

I did try that as as well but I can't get Exchange to talk to that server. I did configure a receive connector that matched the one the Zimbra server is using (but with different IP), but I'm an Exchange noob as well. I'm learning, but Exchange is one ungodly complicated beast.

usually you can do 2 ways
main.cf and read in the aliases within mailman which is the best way so you can configure new lists without manually modify aliases.db yourself

or you skip that and alias manually

I don't mind configuring aliases manually; we don't have that many lists and they don't change much, so it won't be that much of a problem past the initial configuration. I know it's not clean or ideal, but I really really need to get the lists running now so I'll live with it.

What files would I need to modify? Would it be something similar to that found at Add Alias To Script - Zimbra :: Wiki?


Thanks!

Lisa

[bofh]

Originally Posted by lapplegate

I did try that as as well but I can't get Exchange to talk to that server. I did configure a receive connector that matched the one the Zimbra server is using (but with different IP), but I'm an Exchange noob as well. I'm learning, but Exchange is one ungodly complicated beast.



I don't mind configuring aliases manually; we don't have that many lists and they don't change much, so it won't be that much of a problem past the initial configuration. I know it's not clean or ideal, but I really really need to get the lists running now so I'll live with it.

What files would I need to modify? Would it be something similar to that found at Add Alias To Script - Zimbra :: Wiki?


Thanks!

Lisa

ahm what do you mean you cant get to talk it to your server????
simply make a subdomain mx in your dns server

but you could also simply send a mail to whatever@ipadress or whatever@listserver.yourdomain.com

every server can recieve mails they dont have to be mx

im using this in the master.cf

mailman   unix  -       n       n       -       -       pipe
  flags=FR user=list argv=/usr/lib/mailman/bin/postfix-to-mailman.py
  ${nexthop} ${user}

To cimpile mailman im using this

./configure \
--prefix=/var/www/wwwapps/listserver \
--with-mail-gid=mailman postfix \
--with-cgi-gid=www-data \
--with-username=mailman \
--with-groupname=mailman \
--with-mailhost=localhost \
--with-urlhost=listserver.yourdomain.com \

and httpd (apache2)

<VirtualHost 10.10.10.10:80>
    ServerName listserver.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com/listserver/
    CustomLog /var/log/httpd/example.listserver.ecample.com.log combined
    Options +FollowSymlinks
    ScriptAlias /admin          /var/www/wwwapps/listserver/cgi-bin/admin
    ScriptAlias /admindb        /var/www/wwwapps/listserver/cgi-bin/admindb
    ScriptAlias /confirm        /var/www/wwwapps/listserver/cgi-bin/confirm
    ScriptAlias /create         /var/www/wwwapps/listserver/cgi-bin/create
    ScriptAlias /edithtml       /var/www/wwwapps/listserver/cgi-bin/edithtml
    ScriptAlias /listinfo       /var/www/wwwapps/listserver/cgi-bin/listinfo
    ScriptAlias /options        /var/www/wwwapps/listserver/cgi-bin/options
    ScriptAlias /private        /var/www/wwwapps/listserver/cgi-bin/private
    ScriptAlias /rmlist         /var/www/wwwapps/listserver/cgi-bin/rmlist
    ScriptAlias /roster         /var/www/wwwapps/listserver/cgi-bin/roster
    ScriptAlias /subscribe      /var/www/wwwapps/listserver/cgi-bin/subscribe
</VirtualHost>

i know this httpd config is unusual you can use the regular documented to
i just dont wanted mailmans cgis within a regular directory that aliases gives some additional protection
i also use a wwwapps directory for all apps on that server so forget about that use the httpd conf in the mailman manual should be fine



however this is jsut to setup mailman on a regular box with standard postfix and apache2
i think its possible on same box as zimbra with an additional ip for shure
but im not a friend of that solution so ive never tried or give nay thought about that


however what does not work is using an alias on box one to alias an mailmanaccount on box 2
you have to make 2 aliases then
on exchange
listserver@exchange.yourdomain.com - alias to listserver@listserver.yourdomain.com

on listserver
listserver: "|/var/www/wwwapps/listserver/mail/mailman post listname"

OR use the maincf addon i gave you
if you make the cf entry the aliases.db created by mailman will be used
if you dont you have to add all entrys manually like

mailman:             "|/var/www/wwwapps/listserver/mail/mailman post mailman"
mailman-admin:       "|/var/www/wwwapps/listserver/mail/mailman admin mailman"
mailman-bounces:     "|/var/www/wwwapps/listserver/mail/mailman bounces mailman"
mailman-confirm:     "|/var/www/wwwapps/listserver/mail/mailman confirm mailman"
mailman-join:        "|/var/www/wwwapps/listserver/mail/mailman join mailman"
mailman-leave:       "|/var/www/wwwapps/listserver/mail/mailman leave mailman"
mailman-owner:       "|/var/www/wwwapps/listserver/mail/mailman owner mailman"
mailman-request:     "|/var/www/wwwapps/listserver/mail/mailman request mailman"
mailman-subscribe:   "|/var/www/wwwapps/listserver/mail/mailman subscribe mailman"
mailman-unsubscribe: "|/var/www/wwwapps/listserver/mail/mailman unsubscribe mailman"

of course adjust the correct path

[bofh]

PS theres a fix permission bin files wihtin mailmans bin directory
dont ask me now name exactly youll find it

you should do that after recompile and install to make shure permissions are good

postfix need rights to execute in the mailmandirectory so apache do too

[lapplegate]

Update: I finally did get Zimbra and Mailman working on my server. It's been running fine for a while now, so I thought I'd post a writeup on the steps I took. I did run into a lot of blind alleys in my search for a solution, but I think I've managed to weed those out of the writeup, so this should summarize how I got it all working. Yeah!

See the attached file for the writeup.


Lisa