## page was renamed from DOC/4.27 Securing Mailman's web GUI by using Secure HTTP-SSL
#pragma page-filename DOC/versions/4030702
== 4.27. Securing Mailman's web GUI by using Secure HTTP/SSL (HTTPS) ==

For extra security when using Mailman's web GUI you may want to make access to it use Secure HTTP with URLs using the https scheme.

To do this you will need to:

1. Make the appropriate changes to your Apache installation (adding a module to provide SSL support, for example) and httpd.conf so that your server will only make the Mailman web interface URIs available via Secure HTTP. For more information about configuring Apache visit [[http://httpd.apache.org|http://httpd.apache.org]].

Something like:

{{{
 RedirectPermanent /mailman/ https://<server_name>/mailman/
}}}

may do the trick although it may cause a loop when `http://<server_name>/mailman/` is redirected to `https://<server_name>/mailman/` which is redirected to `https://<server_name>/mailman/` ...

In order to avoid this, you can define separate virtual hosts for `http://<server_name>/` and `https://<server_name>/` and only apply the redirect to the `http://<server_name>/` host and only configure Mailman access for the `https://<server_name>/` host.

Alternatively, you may be able to use `RewriteCond` and `RewriteRule` to rewrite `http://<server_name>/mailman/` as `https://<server_name>/mailman/` only when the scheme is http.

There are various ways to do this in Apache. For example

{{{
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS}        off [NC]
RewriteRule ^/mailman(/.*)  https://%{HTTP_HOST}/mailman$1   [L,R=permanent]
}}}

{{{#!wiki caution
Don't omit the `[NC]` flag on the above `RewriteCond` unless you're certain you know what you're doing.
}}}

2. Assuming MM 2.1.x, assign the value of the DEFAULT_URL_PATTERN Mailman configuration variable in mm_cfg.py to use the https scheme, e.g.

{{{
 DEFAULT_URL_PATTERN = 'https://%s/mailman/'
}}}

This will ensure that the web_page_url attribute of '''new''' lists uses the https scheme.

{{{#!wiki caution
Don't overlook the next step to update existing lists.
}}}

3. Use $prefix/bin/fix_url.py to get the change to DEFAULT_URL_PATTERN propagated to the web_page_url attributes of existing lists. You may need to run this through withlist, ie

{{{
 $prefix/bin/withlist -l -r fix_url listname
}}}

or to do all lists at once

{{{
 $prefix/bin/withlist -l -a -r fix_url
}}}

If you have lists in domains other than DEFAULT_URL_HOST you will need to do

{{{
 $prefix/bin/withlist -l -r fix_url listname -u list_web_domain
}}}

for each such list. See {{{$prefix/bin/withlist --help}}} and {{{$prefix/bin/fix_url.py}}}.

4. If you want to access public archives via SSL, assign the value of the PUBLIC_ARCHIVE_URL Mailman configuration variable in mm_cfg.py to use the https scheme, e.g.

{{{
 PUBLIC_ARCHIVE_URL = 'https://%(hostname)s/pipermail/%(listname)s'
}}}

and use one of the above techniques to enforce it.

Converted from the Mailman FAQ Wizard

This is one of many [[../Frequently Asked Questions|Frequently Asked Questions]].