Hooking up your mail server¶
Mailman needs to communicate with your MTA (mail transport agent or mail server, the software which handles sending mail across the Internet), both to accept incoming mail and to deliver outgoing mail. Mailman itself never delivers messages to the end user. It sends them to its immediate upstream MTA, which delivers them. In the same way, Mailman never receives mail directly. Mail from outside always comes via the MTA.
Mailman accepts incoming messages from the MTA using the Local Mail Transfer Protocol (LMTP) interface. Mailman can use other incoming transports, but LMTP is much more efficient than spawning a process just to do the delivery. Most open source MTAs support LMTP for local delivery. If yours doesn’t, and you need to use a different interface, please ask on the mailing list or on IRC.
Mailman passes all outgoing messages to the MTA using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).
Cooperation between Mailman and the MTA requires some configuration of both. MTA configuration differs for each of the available MTAs, and there is a section for each one. Instructions for Postfix and Exim (v4) are given below. We would really appreciate a contribution of a configuration for Sendmail, and welcome information about other popular open source mail servers.
Configuring Mailman to communicate with the MTA is straightforward,
and basically the same for all MTAs. In your mailman.cfg
file,
add (or edit) a section like the following:
[mta]
incoming: mailman.mta.postfix.LMTP
outgoing: mailman.mta.deliver.deliver
lmtp_host: 127.0.0.1
lmtp_port: 8024
smtp_host: localhost
smtp_port: 25
configuration: python:mailman.config.postfix
This configuration is for a system where Mailman and the MTA are on the same host.
Note that the modules that configure the communication protocol (especially
incoming
) are full-fledged Python modules, and may use these configuration
parameters to automatically configure the MTA to recognize the list addresses
and other attributes of the communication channel. This is why some
constraints on the format of attributes arise (e.g., lmtp_host
), even
though Mailman itself has no problem with them.
The incoming
and outgoing
parameters identify the Python objects used
to communicate with the MTA. The python:
scheme indicates that the paths
should be a dotted Python module specification. The deliver
module used
in outgoing
should be satisfactory for most MTAs. The postfix
module
in incoming
is specific to the Postfix MTA. See the section for your MTA
below for details on these parameters.
lmtp_host
and lmtp_port
are parameters which are used by
Mailman, but also will be passed to the MTA to identify the Mailman
host. The “same host” case is special; some MTAs (including Postfix)
do not recognize “localhost”, and need the numerical IP address. If
they are on different hosts, lmtp_host
should be set to the domain
name or IP address of the Mailman host. lmtp_port
is fairly
arbitrary (there is no standard port for LMTP). Use any port
convenient for your site. “8024” is as good as any, unless another
service is using it.
smtp_host
and smtp_port
are parameters used to identify the
MTA to Mailman. If the MTA and Mailman are on separate hosts,
smtp_host
should be set to the domain name or IP address of the
MTA host. smtp_port
will almost always be 25, which is the
standard port for SMTP. (Some special site configurations set it to a
different port. If you need this, you probably already know that,
know why, and what to do, too!)
Mailman also provides many other configuration variables that you can
use to tweak performance for your operating environment. See the
src/mailman/config/schema.cfg
file for details.
Postfix¶
Postfix is an open source mail server by Wietse Venema.
Mailman settings¶
You need to tell Mailman that you are using the Postfix mail server. In your
mailman.cfg
file, add the following section:
[mta]
incoming: mailman.mta.postfix.LMTP
outgoing: mailman.mta.deliver.deliver
lmtp_host: mail.example.com
lmtp_port: 8024
smtp_host: mail.example.com
smtp_port: 25
Some of these settings are already the default, so take a look at Mailman’s
src/mailman/config/schema.cfg
file for details. You’ll need to change the
lmtp_host
and smtp_host
to the appropriate host names of course.
Generally, Postfix will listen for incoming SMTP connections on port 25.
Postfix will deliver via LMTP over port 24 by default, however if you are not
running Mailman as root, you’ll need to change this to a higher port number,
as shown above.
Basic Postfix connections¶
There are several ways to hook Postfix up to Mailman, so here are the simplest
instructions. The following settings should be added to Postfix’s main.cf
file.
Mailman supports a technique called Variable Envelope Return Path (VERP) to disambiguate and accurately record bounces. By default Mailman’s VERP delimiter is the + sign, so adding this setting allows Postfix to properly handle Mailman’s VERP’d messages:
# Support the default VERP delimiter.
recipient_delimiter = +
In older versions of Postfix, unknown local recipients generated a temporary
failure. It’s much better (and the default in newer Postfix releases) to
treat them as permanent failures. You can add this to your main.cf
file
if needed (use the postconf command to check the defaults):
unknown_local_recipient_reject_code = 550
While generally not necessary if you set recipient_delimiter
as described
above, it’s better for Postfix to not treat owner-
and -request
addresses specially:
owner_request_special = no
Transport maps¶
By default, Mailman works well with Postfix transport maps as a way to deliver
incoming messages to Mailman’s LMTP server. Mailman will automatically write
the correct transport map when its mailman aliases
command is run, or
whenever a mailing list is created or removed via other commands. To connect
Postfix to Mailman’s LMTP server, add the following to Postfix’s main.cf
file:
transport_maps =
hash:/path-to-mailman/var/data/postfix_lmtp
local_recipient_maps =
hash:/path-to-mailman/var/data/postfix_lmtp
relay_domains =
hash:/path-to-mailman/var/data/postfix_domains
where path-to-mailman
is replaced with the actual path that you’re running
Mailman from. Setting local_recipient_maps
as well as transport_maps
allows Postfix to properly reject all messages destined for non-existent local
users. Setting relay_domains means Postfix will start to accept mail for
newly added domains even if they are not part of mydestination.
Note that if you are not using virtual domains, then relay_domains isn’t
strictly needed (but it is harmless). All you need to do in this scenario is
to make sure that Postfix accepts mail for your one domain, normally by
including it in mydestination
.
Postfix documentation¶
For more information regarding how to configure Postfix, please see the Postfix documentation at:
Exim¶
Exim 4 is an MTA maintained by the University of Cambridge and distributed by most open source OS distributions.
Mailman settings¶
Add or edit a stanza like this in mailman.cfg:
[mta]
# For all Exim4 installations.
incoming: mailman.mta.exim4.LMTP
outgoing: mailman.mta.deliver.deliver
# Typical single host with MTA and Mailman configuration.
# Adjust to your system's configuration.
# Exim happily works with the "localhost" alias rather than IP address.
lmtp_host: localhost
smtp_host: localhost
# Mailman should not be run as root.
# Use any convenient port > 1024. 8024 is a convention, but can be
# changed if there is a conflict with other software using that port.
lmtp_port: 8024
# smtp_port rarely needs to be set.
smtp_port: 25
# Exim4-specific configuration parameter defaults. Currently empty.
configuration: python:mailman.config.exim4
For further information about these settings, see
mailman/config/schema.cfg
.
Exim4 configuration¶
The configuration presented below is mostly boilerplate that allows Exim to automatically discover your list addresses, and route both posts and administrative messages to the right Mailman services. For this reason, the mailman.mta.exim4 module ends up with all methods being no-ops.
This configuration is field-tested in a Debian “conf.d”-style Exim installation, with multiple configuration files that are assembled by a Debian-specific script. If your Exim v4 installation is structured differently, ignore the comments indicating location in the Debian installation.
# /etc/exim4/conf.d/main/25_mm3_macros
# The colon-separated list of domains served by Mailman.
domainlist mm_domains=list.example.net
MM3_LMTP_PORT=8024
# Assuming a typical source installation in /usr/local, with
# links to the Mailman bin directory and so on from MM3_HOME.
MM3_HOME=/usr/local/var/mailman
MM3_UID=list
MM3_GID=list
################################################################
# The configuration below is boilerplate:
# you should not need to change it.
# The path to the list receipt (used as the required file when
# matching list addresses)
MM3_LISTCHK=MM3_HOME/lists/${local_part}@${domain}
# /etc/exim4/conf.d/router/455_mm3_router
mailman3_router:
driver = accept
domains = +mm_domains
require_files = MM3_LISTCHK
local_part_suffix_optional
local_part_suffix = -admin : \
-bounces : -bounces+* : \
-confirm : -confirm+* : \
-join : -leave : \
-owner : -request : \
-subscribe : -unsubscribe
transport = mailman3_transport
# /etc/exim4/conf.d/transport/55_mm3_transport
mailman3_transport:
driver = smtp
protocol = lmtp
allow_localhost
hosts = localhost
port = MM3_LMTP_PORT
Troubleshooting¶
The most likely causes of failure to deliver to Mailman are typos in the
configuration, and errors in the MM3_HOME
macro or the mm_domains
list. Mismatches in the LMTP port could be a cause. Finally, Exim’s router
configuration is order-sensitive. Especially if you are being tricky and
supporting Mailman 2 and Mailman 3 at the same time, you could have one shadow
the other.
Exim 4 documentation¶
There is copious documentation for Exim. The parts most relevant to configuring communication with Mailman 3 are the chapters on the accept router and the LMTP transport. Unless you are already familiar with Exim configuration, you probably want to start with the chapter on how Exim receives and delivers mail.
Sendmail¶
The core Mailman developers generally do not use Sendmail, so experience is limited. Any and all contributions are welcome! The follow information from a post by Gary Algier <gaa@ulticom.com> may be useful as a starting point, although it describes Mailman 2:
I have it working fine. I recently replaced a very old implementation of sendmail and Mailman 2 on Solaris with a new one on CentOS 6. When I did so, I used the POSTFIX_ALIAS_CMD mechanism to automatically process the aliases. See:
https://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2004-June/037518.htmlIn mm_cfg.py:
MTA='Postfix' POSTFIX_ALIAS_CMD = '/usr/bin/sudo /etc/mail/import-mailman-aliases'/etc/mail/import-mailman-aliases contains:
#! /bin/sh /bin/cp /etc/mailman/aliases /etc/mail/mailman.aliases /usr/bin/newaliasesIn /etc/sudoers.d/mailman:
Cmnd_Alias IMPORT_MAILMAN_ALIASES = /etc/mail/import-mailman-aliases apache ALL= NOPASSWD: IMPORT_MAILMAN_ALIASES mailman ALL= NOPASSWD: IMPORT_MAILMAN_ALIASES Defaults!IMPORT_MAILMAN_ALIASES !requirettyIn the sendmail.mc file I changed:
define(`ALIAS_FILE', `/etc/aliases')dnlto:
define(`ALIAS_FILE', `/etc/aliases,/etc/mail/mailman.aliases')dnlso that the Mailman aliases would be in a separate file.
The main issue here is that Mailman 2 expects to receive messages from the MTA via pipes, whereas Mailman 3 uses LMTP exclusively. Recent Sendmail does support LMTP, so it’s a matter of configuring a stock Sendmail. But rather than using aliases, it needs to be configured to relay to the LMTP port of Mailman.