-11 Customize Mailman
+7 Review your site defaults
-Now that Mailman is all set up, there are a few site-wide configurations you
-can make before you start creating mailing lists. You should do these steps
-using the account you installed Mailman under in the 13 section.
+Mailman has a large number of site-wide configuration options which you should
+now review and change according to your needs. Some of the options control
+how Mailman interacts with your environment, and other options select defaults
+for newly created lists5.
+There are system tuning parameters and integration options.
-
-
-
The file $prefix/Mailman/Defaults.py contains a number of
- defaults for your installation. If any of these are incorrect, override
- them in $prefix/Mailman/mm_cfg.py, not in the
- Defaults.py file! See the comments in Defaults.py for
- details. Once a list is created, editing many of these variables will
- have no effect. At that point, you'll need to configure your lists
- through the web administration interface or through the command line
- scripts bin/withlist and bin/config_list.
+The full set of site-wide defaults lives in the
+$prefix/Mailman/Defaults.py file, however you should
+never modify this file! Instead, change the mm_cfg.py file in
+that same directory. You only need to add values to mm_cfg.py that are
+different than the defaults in Defaults.py, and future Mailman upgrades
+are guaranteed never to touch your mm_cfg.py file.
-The install process will never overwrite an existing mm_cfg.py
- file so you can freely make changes to this file.
+The Defaults.py file is documented extensively, so the options are not
+described here. The Defaults.py and mm_cfg.py are both
+Python files so valid Python syntax must be
+maintained or your Mailman installation will break.
Note:
- Do not change the HOME_DIR or MAILMAN_DIR
- variables. These are set automatically by the configure
- script, and you will break your Mailman installation by if you change
- these.
-
-
-
Create the site password. Use this command:
-
-
-
- % $prefix/bin/mmsitepass <your-site-password>
-
-
-
-This password can be used anywhere that individual user or mailing list
- administrator passwords are required, giving the mailman site
- administrator the ability to adjust these things when necessary.
-
-
-You may also want to create a password for the site-wide ``list creator''
- role. The list creator is someone other than the site administrator who
- has privileges to create and remove lists through the web interface. Use
- the -c option to mmsitepass to set this.
+Do not change the HOME_DIR or MAILMAN_DIR variables.
+These are set automatically by the configure script, and you will
+break your Mailman installation by if you change these.
+
-
-
+You should make any changes to mm_cfg.py using the account you
+installed Mailman under in the 14 section.
In general, changing the list defaults
+described in this section will not affect any already created lists. To make
+changes after a list has been created, use the web interface or the command
+line scripts, such as bin/withlist and bin/config_list.
+
