[UCIMC-Tech] ucimc.org out -- web OK, mailman still not admin-able, maybe here's why, +FIX

[Stuart Levy]

[See below for possible fix for mailman-admin-not-working problem.]

I too face the Mailman problem Mike Lehman mentions.  For all the lists 
I deal with, https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/admindb/<listname> 
brings up a normal-looking mailman page, showing the expected set of 
messages pending moderation (148 of them now on the IMC list itself).

But it's impossible to make any changes - either to pass through 
legitimate messages or delete spammy ones.  Pressing "Submit all data" 
yields a warning that the data will be sent non-securely (and it's true; 
the FORM ACTION= is to an http:// instead of https:// URL).  If you send 
it anyway, you're returned to the same page as before, with none of the 
selected changes having applied.   (In contrast, I *can* make changes on 
the .../mailman/admin/list/<whatever> pages, and those do get applied as 
expected.)

Wondering: did lists.chambana.net always enforce https:// ?   When 
mailman sends mail to list admins about a message that needs attention, 
it mentions a plain http:// URL.  But when I follow that link, my 
browser (Safari) shows it as an https:// page.  So the current 
lists.chambana.net server config must be redirecting http to https 
queries - right?   If that's new behavior, could it be triggering this 
problem?

This writeup:
http://wiki.list.org/display/DOC/4.27+Securing+Mailman's+web+GUI+by+using+Secure+HTTP-SSL 
<http://wiki.list.org/display/DOC/4.27+Securing+Mailman%27s+web+GUI+by+using+Secure+HTTP-SSL>
describes web-server config changes for enforcing https:// on the admin 
pages,
and *also* specific mailman config changes to go along with that . They 
mention:
*    DEFAULT_URL_PATTERN = 'https://%s/mailman/'* (in mm_cfg.py)
and using the "withlist" command to propagate the change into 
pre-generated files in any or all lists.
If that latter step hadn't happened, it could explain this.

What happens when a POST gets a Redirect reply?   Maybe the POSTed data 
gets tossed.   That could be happening here.

By the way: ucimc.org looks good to me too.

(anti-war.net is a cuwireless stub, but it already needed to be trashed 
& recreated anyway.)



On 12/27/12 5:51 PM, Chris Ritzo wrote:
> Thanks for reporting these issues folks. Here's what's going on:
>
> - working on migrating the site to a new server has proved problematic 
> bcs of the size of the database and some issues we're resolving on the 
> new server. the downtime Mike is referencing was due to that about a 
> week ago until I switched the DNS back after a copy of the site failed 
> to come up on the new server.
> - chambana.net <http://chambana.net> and wrfu.net <http://wrfu.net> 
> are down because they were not patched and were insecure. chambana.net 
> <http://chambana.net> now should redirect to accounts.chambana.net 
> <http://accounts.chambana.net> and wrfu.net <http://wrfu.net> is 
> slated to be replaced with a new site to be built and managed by RFU 
> folks.
> - today's outage was due to an issue I just discovered with our VPN. 
> somewhere there is a conflict with IP routing when a client is 
> connected via VPN for remote access. this is used for example when 
> someone needs to connect remotely to the finance computer. Today, I 
> was connected to the VPN for an extended period of time, and 
> disconnecting resolved the issue for me.
>
> For now, all IMC sites hosted in Urbana seem to be coming up fine for 
> me now. If someone else can confirm that would be swell.
>
> Chris
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 5:06 PM, Mike Lehman <rebelmike at earthlink.net 
> <mailto:rebelmike at earthlink.net>> wrote:
>
>     Brian,
>     I've not noticed it being down since Chris worked over the
>     database last week.
>
>     I haven't been able to access chamabana.net <http://chamabana.net>
>     email to admin it for several days though. That may just be a
>     Firefox issue, I'm not sure.
>     Mike
>
>
>     On 12/27/2012 1:42 PM, Brian Dolinar wrote:
>>     Hey folks - ucimc.org <http://ucimc.org> has been offline just
>>     wondering if it's on a holiday vacation. BD
>>     -- 
>>     Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.
>>     303 W. Locust St.
>>     Urbana, IL 61801
>>     briandolinar at gmail.com <mailto:briandolinar at gmail.com> 
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> IMC-Tech mailing list
> IMC-Tech at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/imc-tech

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