Mythic Beasts came back, message below.   TL;DR - they can preserve the archive 
links, but only if we move to MM3.

They want some sizings before they do a price, I'll gather the info they need 
shortly.

--
We can preserve URLs, but only by generating a list of redirects to a Mailman 3 
archive.

Unfortunately, we can't provide Mailman 2 hosting because it relies on Python 2 
which is no longer supported in Debian (or any other mainstream OS).

Mailman 3 is a complete rewrite of Mailman 2, and although it addresses some of 
the shortcomings in Mailman 2, it is quite different to use, and I would 
recommend doing some evaluation of it before committing to a migration of a 
list of this size and history.
--

On Wed, Mar 25, 2026, at 10:58 PM, Paul Poulain via Koha-devel wrote:
> Hello Simon,
> 
> We had a (small group) discussion yesterday at the hackfest, and some more 
> this morning (whole group). The consensus is that, as long as we can search 
> in the archive, it's not a problem to have a URL change for the archive.
> 
> So we propose to move to mailmanlists.net = easy, already paid & very cheap 
> (50€/year), no maintenance effort.
> 
> The topic mailman2 > mailman3 will be addressed later, but it's a good point. 
> Seems that mailmanlists.net can do that for us 
> [https://www.mailmanlists.net/en/faq/02], it will change archive URLs as well 
> so maybe we should move to mailman3 asap, to avoid archive links being broken 
> again in a couple of months.
> 
> QUESTION to the list : does anyone have experience with mailman3 ? Any 
> feedback ? What does change for users ?
> 
> Le 25/03/2026 à 00:35, Simon Blake via Koha-devel a écrit :
>> Random acts of science, grepping around in the current archive, there have 
>> been 8026 messages to the Koha list since January 2020, of those, 56 
>> reference other messages in the archive in the body of the message.   So a 
>> bit less than 1% of messages in the archive contain links to other messages 
>> in the archive that will 404 if we move to mailmanlists.net.
>> 
>> It did occur to me that if it's OK to abandon the archive structure, then 
>> perhaps it makes sense to upgrade to mailman 3 at the same time?  Following 
>> that line of thinking, I found this:
>> 
>> https://www.mythic-beasts.com/blog/2024/09/02/mailman-list-archive-link-preservation/
>> 
>> mostly that post is about the code they wrote to preserve archives, but has 
>> a note at the bottom that they do mailman hosting.  If they can do Koha a 
>> mailman3 list with the mailman2 archive preserved, then that would be a 
>> pretty good outcome.  I've dropped them a line to find out what they can do 
>> and how much, I shall report back.
>> 
>> Also, I just realised that I forgot to remove the firewall rule that refused 
>> SMTP connections when I migrated the Koha list back to the old server, which 
>> is why there hasn't been a message to the list since March 18.  While that 
>> was a dumb move on my part (apologies!), the silver lining is that it does 
>> mean that if the consensus is to move back to mailmanlists.net, then I can 
>> do that without getting them to reimport the list (ie I just change the DNS 
>> entries back to point at mailmanlists.net and delivery will restart). 
>> 
>> Leaving the server blocking SMTP does, though, add some time pressure - in 
>> that sending servers will start dropping messages as undeliverable after 
>> 10-14 days, so we need to make a decision one way or the other in the next 
>> 36 hours.  So I propose:
>>  • I'll give Mythic Beasts 24 hours to respond, if they seem viable, I'll 
>> report that back here, and I'll unblock the firewall to the current server 
>> so that the lists starts working again.
>>  • If Indranil wants to take over lists.katipo.co.nz and move it to a VM, 
>> then that needs to start happening immediately - that is, today.  I'm happy 
>> to tar up the current VM and generally help with the move, I just need a 
>> target.
>>  • If neither of the above come to pass, then 24 hours from now I'll point 
>> the DNS back to mailmanlists.net
>> 
>> Cheers
>> Simon
>> 
>> On Sun, Mar 22, 2026, at 6:43 AM, Katrin Fischer via Koha-devel wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> while Indranil's offer is very generous, I agree with Paul that as long as 
>>> the archive is made searchable again the broken links might be something we 
>>> could live with. I see an advantage in having one less thing to worry about 
>>> maintaining.
>>> 
>>> It will also be good to get more opinions at the hackfest.
>>> 
>>> Katrin
>>> 
>>> On 20.03.26 11:11, Paul Poulain via Koha-devel wrote:
>>>> No-one has an opinion ?
>>>> 
>>>> Mine is that prefer to move to mailmanlists.net and loose the archive 
>>>> links:
>>>> 
>>>>  • archive is still here, it will be indexed by bots
>>>>  • there are not so many critical backlinks
>>>>  • no-one else is willing to manage a server, mailmanlists.net cost 
>>>> 40€/year, nothing can beat it !
>>>> The topic is added to nextweek hackfest (and it includes 
>>>> *@lists.koha-community.org) 
>>>> 
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> 
>>>> Le 19/03/2026 à 05:49, Simon Blake a écrit :
>>>>> Feedback from mailmanlists.net is that the the url changes are an 
>>>>> expected side effect of the way they import the existing list - they 
>>>>> regenerate the archive from scratch from the .mbox file, so they assert 
>>>>> there is nothing they can do to ensure archive links continue to work.    
>>>>> This feels a little arbitrary - the archive is just a tree of HTML in the 
>>>>> filesystem, there's no obvious reason it could't be copied from the old 
>>>>> system (as you'd do if you were moving from one server to another).  
>>>>> 
>>>>> So all opinons welcome.  The current server goes away at the end of the 
>>>>> month, Koha can
>>>>>  • continue with maIlmanlists.net and accept the link breakage
>>>>>  • move/recreate the vm somewhere else, with intact archive
>>>>>  • something else ?
>>>>> Cheers
>>>>> Simon
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Thu, Mar 19, 2026, at 1:18 PM, Simon Blake via Koha-devel wrote:
>>>>>> After mulling that choice for a few minutes, I concluded that reverting 
>>>>>> is the prudent approach - losing subscription changes and archives of 
>>>>>> messages from the past 12 hours is better than invalidating every 
>>>>>> external link into the archive.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> So I've reverted the DNS back to the old server while we sort this out.  
>>>>>> Pathing in to archives will fix itself as DNS caches time out.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Cheers
>>>>>> Simon
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Thu, Mar 19, 2026, at 12:51 PM, Simon Blake via Koha-devel wrote:
>>>>>>> That's a fine question, good spotting!   The new server is a managed 
>>>>>>> service (on mailmanlists.net), so we don't get direct access to it.  
>>>>>>> That said, even if we did, a redirect would be kind of difficult, as 
>>>>>>> it's not just the path - the endpoint HTML file names in the archive 
>>>>>>> have also changed (ie
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> https://oldlists.katipo.co.nz/public/koha/2025-February/061229.html
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> has become 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> https://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/2025-February/056688.html
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Since Paul is likely asleep, I've contacted the support folks at 
>>>>>>> mailmanlists.net to see what they can do (they're in Sydney NSW).  
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Comparing the two archives, it looks like there hasn't been a posting
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Question for you folks, if MML.net come back and say "nothing we can 
>>>>>>> do, suck it up cupcake", then what is the feeling of the koha project 
>>>>>>> to that?  I can revert the DNS changes back to the old server, which 
>>>>>>> will obviously fix all the broken links, but will drop any messages 
>>>>>>> sent to the list since the change from the old archive (currently only 
>>>>>>> the last two messages on 
>>>>>>> https://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/2026-March/date.html#start )
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Cheers
>>>>>>> Simon
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Thu, Mar 19, 2026, at 11:41 AM, David Cook via Koha-devel wrote:
>>>>>>>> By the way, it looks like a lot of old links are broken now like 
>>>>>>>> https://lists.katipo.co.nz/public/koha/2025-February/061229.html
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Are there plans to do a redirect?
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> David Cook
>>>>>>>> Senior Software Engineer
>>>>>>>> Prosentient Systems
>>>>>>>> Suite 7.03
>>>>>>>> 6a Glen St
>>>>>>>> Milsons Point NSW 2061
>>>>>>>> Australia
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Office: 02 9212 0899
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>>> From: Koha-devel <[email protected]> On 
>>>>>>>> Behalf Of Paul Poulain via Koha-devel
>>>>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, 18 March 2026 7:29 PM
>>>>>>>> To: koha-devel <[email protected]>
>>>>>>>> Subject: [Koha-devel] koha mailing list moved, who is admin ?
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Hello all,
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> The https://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha has been moved 
>>>>>>>> from a katipo server to mailmanlists.net provider (BibLibre paying the 
>>>>>>>> bill).
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I have forwarded the admin password to @rangi (Chris C.) , I have it 
>>>>>>>> too.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> @RACHEL = do you want to still be admin ?
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> @KOHA-DEVEL = anyone else should be ? Something to be 
>>>>>>>> discussed/decided during the next general meeting ?
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Note that, next week during the hackfest, we may move 
>>>>>>>> @lists.koha-community.org lists to this provider as well.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> Paul Poulain, Associé-gérant / CEO
>>>>>>>> BibLibre, Services et logiciels libres pour votre bibliothèque 
>>>>>>>> BibLibre, Open Source software and services for your library
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>> Koha-devel mailing list
>>>>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>>>>> https://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
>>>>>>>> website : https://www.koha-community.org/
>>>>>>>> git : https://git.koha-community.org/
>>>>>>>> bugs : https://bugs.koha-community.org/
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Koha-devel mailing list
>>>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>>>> https://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
>>>>>>> website : https://www.koha-community.org/
>>>>>>> git : https://git.koha-community.org/
>>>>>>> bugs : https://bugs.koha-community.org/
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Koha-devel mailing list
>>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>>> https://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
>>>>>> website : https://www.koha-community.org/
>>>>>> git : https://git.koha-community.org/
>>>>>> bugs : https://bugs.koha-community.org/
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> -- 
>>>> Paul Poulain, Associé-gérant / CEO
>>>> BibLibre, Services et logiciels libres pour votre bibliothèque
>>>> BibLibre, Open Source software and services for your library
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Koha-devel mailing list
>>>> [email protected]
>>>> https://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
>>>> website : https://www.koha-community.org/
>>>> git : https://git.koha-community.org/
>>>> bugs : https://bugs.koha-community.org/
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Koha-devel mailing list
>>> [email protected]
>>> https://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
>>> website : https://www.koha-community.org/
>>> git : https://git.koha-community.org/
>>> bugs : https://bugs.koha-community.org/
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Koha-devel mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> https://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
>> website : https://www.koha-community.org/
>> git : https://git.koha-community.org/
>> bugs : https://bugs.koha-community.org/
> -- 
> Paul Poulain, Associé-gérant / CEO
> BibLibre, Services et logiciels libres pour votre bibliothèque
> BibLibre, Open Source software and services for your library
> _______________________________________________
> Koha-devel mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
> website : https://www.koha-community.org/
> git : https://git.koha-community.org/
> bugs : https://bugs.koha-community.org/
> 
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