[Pkg-mailman-hackers] Bug#355637: mailman: Stale lock files break administrative web interface

[Shannon Dealy]

Package: mailman
Version: 2.1.5-7
Severity: normal


Under some circumstances (presumably mailman software or system crashes),
list specific stale lock files are left in the directory /var/lib/mailman/locks
this can permanently prevent administrative login for that specific list until
the lock file(s) are removed.  It also seems to result in irratic behavior for
some other aspects of the list software (heavy cpu loading, refusal of qrunner
process to cleanly shutdown requiring a hard kill).  There appears to be no
mechanism to cleanup these stale lock files (there were a couple in the
directory dating back several years), and restarting mailman or even rebooting
the system does not clean things up.  At the very least restarting mailman
should cleanup these stale lock files, in particular what I assume is the
master lock: listname.lock and probably the actual source of my problems.
A better solution would probably include actually checking the lock files
periodically to make sure they are still valid.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.11.10-bs5deatech
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages mailman depends on:
ii  apache [httpd]            1.3.33-6sarge1 versatile, high-performance HTTP s
ii  apache2-mpm-prefork [http 2.0.54-5       traditional model for Apache2
ii  cron                      3.0pl1-86      management of regular background p
ii  debconf                   1.4.30.13      Debian configuration management sy
ii  exim [mail-transport-agen 3.36-16        An MTA (Mail Transport Agent)
ii  libc6                     2.3.2.ds1-22   GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  logrotate                 3.7-5          Log rotation utility
ii  pwgen                     2.03-1         Automatic Password generation
ii  python                    2.3.5-2        An interactive high-level object-o
ii  ucf                       1.17           Update Configuration File: preserv

-- debconf information:
* mailman/queue_files_present:
  mailman/default_server_language: en
* mailman/gate_news: false
* mailman/site_languages: en
* mailman/used_languages: en
* mailman/create_site_list: