Mailman, Mailman
(Warning: high geek content) I had to move a Mailman mailing list from one server to another. I've successfully done this before, but this time I experienced a weird problem. This list imported properly, but for some reason, the admin password didn't work. I tried many things, all to no avail. And then I discovered a Mailman utility called withlist.Withlist is described as a "general framework for interacting with a mailing list object". You can either interact with the mailing list object through an interpreter, or you can make a little script to which the mailing list object will be passed.
After going through a bunch of source code, I figured out how Mailman sets the administrative password for a particular list. Using the interpreter, I was able to programmatically update the password, and then login to the administrative interface. In case this should happen again, or if one of my users forgets their administrative password, and needs to have it updated, I wrote a little "module" to update the password. You can download it here.
I imagine that to most people, this is a pretty boring entry. And it really is -- I'll be the first to admit it. But I've decided that my blog is a good place for me to post information that I myself can use in future situations. I don't always have the best memory, so if something takes me a while to figure the first time, I've learned that I should document it so that I don't have to waste more time in the future figuring out the same problem.
