4.46. File extension in pipermail archive is obj or bin, not xls or doc. why?

From the mailing list:

  whenever I access it through the archives it gets relinked to certain
  location where the extension is either .obj or .bin ..problem is whenever a
  user is accessing it.. he is asked on what application to open it with.. can
  this prevented... that is still retains its attachments original extension
  files. ex. .xls .doc?

Mailman archiver is designed to attain safety against malicious files like viruses. Typical virus mail has an attachment like this:

  ------=_NextPart_000_001B_01C0CA80.6B015D10
  Content-Type: audio/x-wav;
          name="message.scr"
  Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
  Content-ID: <031401Mfdab4$3f3dL780$73387018@57W81fa70Re>

  TVqQAAMAAAAE...

Windows will execute this code if the extension is kept as .scr which is not an audio/x-wav file extension.

Some mailers are not compliant with the IANA registered mime extension and put application/octet-stream content-type for excel or msword. In this case, mailman is very cautious not to trust the original extention and change it to .bin. If these files are sent by a compliant mailer like netscape, the content-type will be application/msword or application/vnd.ms-excel and the extension will become .doc or .xls.

So, if you really don't care about safety, you must hack the code at your own risk.

Note that beginning with Mailman 2.1.6, it is not necessary to hack the code. Just put

 SCRUBBER_USE_ATTACHMENT_FILENAME_EXTENSION = Yes

in mm_cfg.py.

Oh, there is an option to use an external archiver... 4.03 Mailman's internal archiver (Pipermail) doesn't understand MIME! What can I do?

Converted from the Mailman FAQ Wizard

This is one of many Frequently Asked Questions.