[Pkg-mailman-hackers] Bug#408855: mailman logs symlink is relative instead of absolute, doesn't match others

[Paul Schreiber]

Package: mailman
Version: 1:2.1.9-5
Severity: normal

# ls -l /var/lib/mailman
total 41k
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   24 Jan 27 18:30 Mailman ->
/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/
drwxrwsr-x  4 list list 4.1k Jan 18  2001 archives/
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   20 Jan 27 18:30 bin -> /usr/lib/mailman/bin/
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   24 Jan 27 18:30 cgi-bin ->
/usr/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   21 Jan 27 18:30 cron -> /usr/lib/mailman/cron/
drwxrwsr-x  2 root list 8.2k Jan 27 18:30 data/
drwxrwsr-x  2 root list 4.1k Aug 28  2002 icons/
drwxrwsr-x 33 root list 4.1k Jan 15 03:54 lists/
drwxrwsr-x  2 root list 4.1k Jan 27 18:32 locks/
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   17 Jan 27 18:30 logs -> ../../log/mailman
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   21 Jan 27 18:30 mail -> /usr/lib/mailman/mail/
drwxrwsr-x 34 root list 4.1k Jan 19 03:59 messages/
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   26 Jan 27 18:30 pythonlib ->
/usr/lib/mailman/pythonlib/
drwxrwsr-x 12 root list 4.1k Jan 19 04:11 qfiles/
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   24 Jan 27 18:30 scripts ->
/usr/lib/mailman/scripts/
drwxrwsr-x  2 root list 4.1k Sep 28  2003 spam/
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   12 Jan 27 18:30 templates -> /etc/mailman/
drwxrwsr-x  4 root list 4.1k Jan 27 18:30 tests/

logs should be a link to /var/log/mailman:
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root list   16 Jan 28 01:36 logs -> /var/log/mailman/

if you move your logs directory and symlink it back (my logs directory
is /data/log, symlinked to /var/log), mailman fails to run. this is
exacerbated by the fact that it won't even tell you *why* it can't run,
because it can't write the error log.

$ ls -l /var | grep log
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root     9 Oct 15  2002 log -> /data/log/

this would also match all of the other symlinks, which use absolute
paths

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-3-686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages mailman depends on:
ii  adduser                      3.101       Add and remove users and groups
ii  apache [httpd]               1.3.34-4    versatile, high-performance HTTP s
ii  cron                         3.0pl1-99   management of regular background p
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]        1.5.11      Debian configuration management sy
ii  libc6                        2.3.6.ds1-8 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  logrotate                    3.7.1-3     Log rotation utility
ii  lsb-base                     3.1-22      Linux Standard Base 3.1 init scrip
ii  postfix [mail-transport-agen 2.3.6-1     A high-performance mail transport 
ii  pwgen                        2.05-1      Automatic Password generation
ii  python                       2.4.4-2     An interactive high-level object-o
ii  python-support               0.5.6       automated rebuilding support for p
ii  ucf                          2.0018.1    Update Configuration File: preserv

mailman recommends no packages.

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