4.9. Summary of the mailman/bin/ commands

This is a summary of the mailman commands available via the console in ~mailman/bin/..

These commands are essential for building mailing lists and for backing up list information (users, user options, list configuration). The commands also greatly extend the functionality of Mailman.

For more information about a specific command, give the command with the '--help' option.

add_members: add regular or digested users to a list.

arch: rebuild a mailing list's archives.

change_pw: change a list's password.

check_db: check a mailing list database for corruption.

check_perms: check the permissions on the Mailman installation.

cleanarch: clean up an .mbox archive file before importing with bin/arch.

clone_member: add a list member with identical settings as an existing list member (including password).

config_list: examine or change list configuration from the command line.

convert.py: a withlist script to convert a list's interpolation strings from %-strings to $-strings.

discard: discard held messages.

dumpdb: dump the contents of a Mailman .db file.

find_member: find all lists that a specified user is on.

fix_url.py: a withlist script to reset a list's web_page_url and host_name attributes.

genaliases: regenerate Mailman specific aliases from scratch.

inject: inject a message from a file into a Mailman queue.

list_admins: list all the owners of a mailing list.

list_lists: list all the Mailman mailing lists.

list_members: list members of a mailing list.

list_owners: list the owners of a mailing list, or all mailing lists.

mailmanctl: primary start-up and shutdown script for Mailman's qrunner daemon.

mmsitepass: set the site password, good for admin-ing any list.

newlist: create a new mailing list.

qrunner: run one or more qrunners, once or repeatedly - usually only used by mailmanctl.

rb-archfix: reduce disk space usage for Pipermail archives.

remove_members: remove specified members from a list.

reset_pw.py: a withlist script to reset the passwords for members of a mailing list.

rmlist: remove an old mailing list - does not remove the archives unless you specify -a.

show_qfiles: show the contents of one or more Mailman queue files.

sync_members: synchronizes mailing list membership with a flat text file.

transcheck: check a given Mailman translation (i18n).

unshunt: move messages from the shunt queue to the original queue.

update: upgrade from previous version of Mailman to current version.

version: print out the version of Mailman you are using.

withlist: advanced interactions with mailing list objects.

Other notable files:

msgfmt.py: generate binary message catalog from textual translation description - a simple reimplementation of GNU msgfmt used during Mailman's installation.

paths.py: module used by many Mailman scripts to tell it where its files are stored.

pygettext.py: module used to generate the master message strings catalog for internationalization.

mailman/Mailman/Defaults.py: The default values for configuring Mailing lists. Also controls how Mailman interacts with your MTA (sendmail, postfix, qmail...), and how it interacts with your web server. Note: NEVER change this file - copy any section you want to change into the file below and make the changes there.

mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py: Your site's customized settings. Used to set the defaults for any new mailing lists. It is highly recommended that you read through Defaults.py before making any changes, but that you make any desired changes in this file.

Converted from the Mailman FAQ Wizard

This is one of many Frequently Asked Questions.