[Pkg-mailman-hackers] Bug#643713: mailman: newlist should check for required priviledges before commiting changes

[Christoph Egger]

Package: mailman
Version: 1:2.1.13-5
Severity: normal

Hi!

  If newlist is run as user `list` it fails because it is unable to
modify /var/lib/mailman/data/virtual-mailman:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/sbin/newlist", line 266, in <module>
    main()
  File "/usr/sbin/newlist", line 233, in main
    sys.modules[modname].create(mlist)
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/MTA/Postfix.py", line 231, in create
    _do_create(mlist, VIRTFILE, _addvirtual)
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/MTA/Postfix.py", line 204, in _do_create
    fp = open(textfile, 'r+')
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/var/lib/mailman/data/virtual-mailman'

  However the list is already configured so the system ends up with a
zombi list with no working mail delivery and a newlist with
appropriate rights will fail because the list was already
created. newlist could check for the needed priviledges at the
beginning and maybe even output a usefull error message ;-)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0.2
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages mailman depends on:
ii  apache2                2.2.16-6+squeeze3 Apache HTTP Server metapackage
ii  apache2-mpm-prefork [h 2.2.16-6+squeeze3 Apache HTTP Server - traditional n
ii  cron                   3.0pl1-116        process scheduling daemon
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]  1.5.36.1          Debian configuration management sy
ii  exim4                  4.72-6+squeeze2   metapackage to ease Exim MTA (v4) 
ii  exim4-daemon-heavy [ma 4.72-6+squeeze2   Exim MTA (v4) daemon with extended
ii  libc6                  2.11.2-10         Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  logrotate              3.7.8-6           Log rotation utility
ii  lsb-base               3.2-23.2squeeze1  Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip
ii  pwgen                  2.06-1+b1         Automatic Password generation
ii  python                 2.6.6-3+squeeze6  interactive high-level object-orie
ii  python-support         1.0.10            automated rebuilding support for P
ii  ucf                    3.0025+nmu1       Update Configuration File: preserv

mailman recommends no packages.

Versions of packages mailman suggests:
pn  listadmin                     <none>     (no description available)
pn  lynx                          <none>     (no description available)
pn  spamassassin                  <none>     (no description available)

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/mailman/apache.conf changed [not included]

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