On Friday, August 15, 2003, at 07:51 pm, Bill Goffe wrote:
I'm running Mailman 2.1.2 on a Debian system, and I'd like to call add_members from another script. In my application, users can only get to this point via a password, so I'm reasonably sure that they don't need address verification that the normal subscription mechanism provides. But, when I call add_members from another CGI script, I get
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/mailman/bin/remove_members", line 186, in ? main() File "/usr/local/mailman/bin/remove_members", line 161, in main mlist = MailList.MailList(listname) File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 122, in __init__ self.Lock() File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 155, in Lock self.__lock.lock(timeout) File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/LockFile.py", line 243, in lock self.__write() File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/LockFile.py", line 422, in __write fp = open(self.__tmpfname, 'w') IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/usr/local/mailman/locks/a.lock.cook.20710.0'
As Mailman and Apache run under different userids, I tried adding
Mailman's group to Apache's, but I still get similar errors (I tried the
reverse in case I got it reversed). Interestingly, if I run Apache
*itself* as mailman, it works fine, but that seems like an awfully blunt
mechanism.
I read the FAQ, but didn't see anything. I also spent a lot of time in archives, and while this is talked about, it is never really answered.
Mailman's own CGI scripts are run via compiled C wrappers that have set gid to the mailman group permission and which then execute the associated MM CGI script from $prefix/Mailman/Cgi/ directory. These wrappers do some security checking before running the script. The source of the wrapper is in $build/src/cgi-wrapper.c
You do not necessarily have to copy this approach in all its detail, although, if your alternative CGI script is written in Python, it is not that difficult to do. But the general principle of doing it this way is good. Take a look at the permissions on the wrappers in $exec-prefix/cgi-bin/ and the C wrapper source code.
Certainly this is preferable to opening up the permissions of your Apache server too far, especially if it is accessible from the internet.
Another approach is to have your script drop stuff to a file where a cron script run by the mailman user picks the data up and does the real thing. But this puts a lag in response and lacks immediacy. But it can be made a bit more hacker proof.
Thus, I'm most curious if anybody has any suggestions.
- Bill
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*---------------------------------------------------------------------- -----*
----------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Barrett http://www.openinfo.co.uk
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