Sympa is mailing list management software.

Sympa

Installing and Configuring on Lenny

Prerequisites

Installation

1. Install Sympa package :

# apt-get install sympa

Sympa create all tables during installation. Thus, you must provide the root password of Mysql or Postgresql.

2. Configure logs :

# mkdir /var/log/sympa

local1.* /var/log/sympa/sympa.log

WWSympa

WWSympa is the web interface of sympa. Sympa and WWSympa are in the same package : sympa. When installed, the Web interface is accessible at this URL : http://localhost/wws/

By default, Sympa daemons run with sympa user privileges and web interface with apache user privileges.

To run wwsympa with sympa privileges, you can install suexec apache module :

# apt-get install apache2-suexec
# a2enmod suexec

Also you will need fcgid apache2 module

# apt-get install libapache2-mod-fcgid
# a2enmod fcgid

Modify apache configuration file of sympa (initialy in /etc/apache2/conf.d/sympa) :

# Apache configuration file for Sympa

Alias /static-sympa /var/lib/sympa/static_content
Alias /wwsicons /usr/share/sympa/icons
ScriptAlias /wws /var/www/sympa/wwsympa.fcgi

  <IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
    IPCCommTimeout 120
    MaxProcessCount 2
  </IfModule>

  SuexecUserGroup sympa sympa

  <Location /wws>
    SetHandler fcgid-script
  </Location>

Attention ! When you use suexec : your cgi scripts must be store in document root : /var/www. Thus you must create a wrapper to execute the wwsympa.fcgi in /usr/lib/cgi-bin/sympa :

# mkdir /var/www/sympa
# vim /var/www/sympa/wwsympa.fcgi

Create /var/www/sympa/wwwsympa.fcgi :

 #!/bin/sh
 /usr/lib/cgi-bin/sympa/wwsympa.fcgi

and give the good privilege to your script. So suexec can launch it.

# chown -R sympa:sympa /var/www/sympa/
# chmod ug+x sympa/wwsympa.fcgi 

After that you can browse, send the listmaster password and send messages with the web interface. If apache return an error, look at logs : /var/log/apache2/error.log and /var/log/apache2/suexec.log