[server-admins] [Server-admins] Mailman and exim configuration

[Jonathan Marsden]

Troy A. Griffitts wrote:

> I hack the java CORBA library ...

> Tomcat runs fun with no 100% spin, even if you hit SWORDWeb, until
> after a little bit of usage.  This all started after I hacked the
> Java CORBA lib.

OK, that narrows down the cause considerably.  What would the
user-visible issues be if you/we ran Tomcat un-hacked for a week or two,
 just as a test?  It might also be interesting to unpack a copy of
Tomcat and diff it against the currently running one, just so we *know*
exactly what has been changed.  I'll look at doing that, if no-one else
beats me to it.

> I didn't know about update.php or I would have run it (if i knew how).
> DM has graciously volunteered to own the wiki, which leaves me
> wonderfully ignorant about the mediawiki package.  I'd like to keep it
> that way, so whatever DM decided we should do (script to know when
> mediawiki is updated and do some additional task, email DM when it's
> updated, yum update post script, whatever...), I'll put in place at his
> recommendation.

OK.  So the issue here is that two admin tasks that have been assigned
to different admins interact.  I'll put together a quick shell script to:

  (a) back up the wiki
  (b) run yum update
  (c) run the update.php script

Then, as long as all yum updates are done that way (running the script)
not by manually typing in sudo yum update, the issue is solved.

Do we have a "development" or "staging" server instance somewhere to
test out such things?  If not, would having one be worth the time
investment in setting it up?  The main server seems to have plenty of
CPU/RAM/disk, so perhaps a virtual machine running on it could serve as
such a development machine?

> Jonathan, thanks for looking into the exim/mailman stuff.  I'll have a
> look at your suggestions when I've had some rest.  I'm not amiss to
> granting permissions to people who are willing to own things long term,
> so let me know if you decide you're up for a long haul commitment.

Understood.  I'm somewhat commitment-shy right now... (mostly because of
work plus local church involvement, plus continuing immigration
hassles...).  Can you grant me just read access to the
(mail/exim/mailman) logs, for the moment?  Also, (assuming no radical
changes to new software, e.g. I stick with exim) what is the minimum
length of a long term server admin commitment -- three months?  six
months?  a year?

Jonathan