April 2009 - BALUG-Admin - lists.balug.org

Re: [BALUG-Admin] time to change list ... passwords
by Michael Paoli 09 Sep '09

09 Sep '09

Looks like "Moderator" password is a non-issue[1]. "Admin" passwords were changed earlier, ... so we should be in pretty good shape at this point. footnotes/references/excerpts: 1. once upon a time the "Moderator" password was set. The one I had in my notes was, I believe, passed to me the same time the "Admin" password had been much earlier passed to me. I'm also fairly certain "way back then" I verified that each password worked on each of the lists. Seems "Moderator" password/functionality is disabled (as we desire it), as A) I checked, and the old "Moderator" password no longer works, and B) the GUI admin stuff quite effectively states that the "Moderator" role only works if both a password is set for it, and an email is set for "Moderator" - and I checked and all three lists have no email set for "Moderator" - so I believe that effectively disables any "Moderator" capability or login - so I think we're well covered there. Quoting "Rick Moen" <rick(a)linuxmafia.com>: > Quoting Michael Paoli (Michael.Paoli(a)cal.berkeley.edu) > >> Thanks - got it (from earlier encrypted contents you sent me) and verified >> it authenticates. > >> Also, as you mentioned, "Moderator" password.... > > I recommend against ever using this function, by the way. So, there's > no point in setting its password. (I can detail the reason for that > recommendation if anyone's interested. Long story. Short version is > that it leads directly to mishaps that the person wielding that password > cannot fix.) > >> It's quite possible many of the "misconfiguration" changes may have been >> done - perhaps by someone who has "Moderator" password, and may not >> even have "Admin" password. > > I don't think so, because I'm pretty sure nobody has set that password. > However, the mishaps I allude to above involve someone accidentally > checking a "autodiscard" or "ban" control on the admin queue page and > submitting changes, then being unable to remove that address from the > autodiscard or ban rosters upon realising his/her mistake, because those > rosters are on an admin page to which moderators lack access. > > So, in theory, someone wielding a moderator password could have > accidentally put Christian Einfeldt's address on the autodiscard list. > All the other changes I discussed are possible only with a listadmin > password. > >> If you don't want to be bothered with changing the "Moderator" password >> (you already covered "Admin" - Thanks!) ... just say the word >> and I'll take care of "Moderator" password. > > You're welcome to set it to something obscure and then forget what it > is. That's probably the smartest thing to do with it. ;->

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BALUG history recapped
by Rick Moen 16 Apr '09

16 Apr '09

FYI. ----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick(a)linuxmafia.com> ----- Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:59:58 -0700 From: Rick Moen <rick(a)linuxmafia.com> To: dvlug(a)linuxmafia.com Subject: Re: [dvlug] Smaug Case Study I wrote: > Along those lines, a lesson that can be learned from BALUG's example: > That group has a history almost as long as SVLUG's, but you'd never know > that from looking at their Web site. Why? Because, long ago, they got > into the bad habit of erasing all data about their meetings immediately > after each meeting occurs. By contrast, look at > http://www.svlug.org/prevmeet.php, which has details of every general > meeting SVLUG's held back to 1998. (The group existed for ten years > before that, too -- but that history is lost except for what's written > on http://www.svlug.org/about.php .) To amplify on that point: If you look at http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-admin-balug.org/, you see the mailing list's history abruptly start in March 2005 with postings about "transitioning some of the mailing list maintenance". What happened? Cast your minds back to 1996[1] when network consultant Dave Sifry and his friend Art Tyde launched BALUG, just as they were also starting to put together their new firm Linuxcare, Inc. Tyde (the group's founding president) originally called it SFLUG or SFBALUG, but Sifry created a Majordomo mailing list called "balug", which then became the name of the group, and it registered balug.org to point to the virtual-hosted Web presence on Sifry's server. They roped webmaster Cydny Fire Eisner and several other volunteers (including me) to maintain the Web site. BALUG started holding monthly speaker presentations at Four Seas Restaurant in Chinatown, which still occur. About a year or so later, a new webmaster who didn't like Eisner's taste for purple "redesigned" the Web site, and in so doing threw away all of BALUG's meeting history up to that date. (Agh!) Also in that time frame, the mailing lists were transitioned from Majordomo to Mailman, and nobody bothered to migrate the cumulative mbox of prior postings. (Agh!) Those have been lost completely. Years passed, with many years of valuable postings going to the Web archives of the Mailman mailing list. Linuxcare imploded in 2001 right at the beginning of the dot-com collapse (long story, which cannot be truthfully told without someone getting sued), and BALUG went mostly derelict as Sifry and Tyde attempted to do other business ventures. (Sifry now operates small Web 2.0 outfit Technorati.) Around 2005, new volunteers Michael Hubbard, Larry Platzek, and Dick Verma stepped in and adopted the group. Nobody bothered to get the cumulative mbox file from Sifry (Agh!), assuming it still existed, which I'm unsure about. So, instead, they simply created new mailing lists virtual-hosted at Dreamhost, and also a virtual-hosted Web site there. And recently, one of the new Web volunteers decided to "redesign" the Web site again, once again in the process throwing away all of BALUG's collected history on its pages. (Agh!) Volunteer Michael Paoli says he's managed to find practically all (or maybe literally all) of the former balug-talk mailing list archive in Web/html format, which is not as good as mbox format, but we might be able to reconstruct / approximate the mbox after some work using sed and awk (or Perl, if someone is a Perlista). So, those years are lost for now, but maybe not irretrievably. SVLUG's mailing list archives are complete all the way back to January 1999 when the conversion from Majordomo to Mailman occurred, _and_ the Majordomo mbox covering Sept. 1997 to Jan 1999 still exists, too: http://lists.svlug.org/archives/svlug.mbox/majordomo.mbox I intend to (finally) merge the Majordomo mbox into the Mailman cumulative one (http://lists.svlug.org/archives/svlug.mbox/svlug.mbox) when we migrate the group's mailing lists and e-mail systems off the legacy box. Point is: It doesn't require a lot of effort to avoid losing a group's history. It really requires just caring, and making a very modest effort. [1] Earliest reference I can find is Nov. 1996. Elsewhere (http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-admin-balug.org/2005-September/00007…) I've posted that Sifry and Tyde founded the group in 1997. I seem to been off by a year -- but that's the sort of thing that happens when a group obliterates its own history. _______________________________________________ dvlug mailing list dvlug(a)linuxmafia.com http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/dvlug ----- End forwarded message -----

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Re: [BALUG-Admin] I'll also update http://lists.balug.org/listinfo.cgi/balug-announce-balug.org
by Michael Paoli 14 Apr '09

14 Apr '09

Quoting "Rick Moen" <rick(a)linuxmafia.com>: > Quoting Michael Paoli (Michael.Paoli(a)cal.berkeley.edu) > >> I'll also update >> http://lists.balug.org/listinfo.cgi/balug-announce-balug.org >> to make [1] a bit more clear (it's already quite clear on >> http://lists.balug.org/listinfo.cgi/balug-talk-balug.org >> and >> http://lists.balug.org/listinfo.cgi/balug-admin-balug.org >> ). > > Intending no criticism, here, Michael, but I'll be curious to see what > you'll be making a bit more clear. It was perhaps subtle enough one might not even notice. Anyway, on: http://lists.balug.org/listinfo.cgi/balug-announce-balug.org I added (note also placement, emphapsis, and link used in the above) text: " (If you're subscribed to other BALUG list(s), but not this one we may subscribe you! See: BALUG-announce-do-not-auto-add.html if you want to be exempted from that and/or for additional related information.) " ... mostly just to round out covering the bases and for preventive maintenance purposes - e.g. scenario where someone's subscribed to "announce" and also subscribed to other BALUG list(s) - so they're not, perhaps repeatedly, surprised finding themselves resubscribed to "announce". It's covered rather/quite well elsewhere, ... but folks tend to forget. Not much of an issue yet, as the auto-add thing isn't yet fully automated (once I have the data - which I gather once in a while anyway for backup purposes (typically about monthly or so) - run a script, paste two places on the "mass subscribe" form, and the relevant folk(s) are added to "announce"). > One reason not to try to make Mailman listinfo pages "a bit more clear" > about unsubscribing is, in my experience, if you overexplain, people > tend to think you're not serious, which then encourages them to say > things like "unsubscribe me; I tried and it doesn't work." Yes, point well taken (and you've made the point well before, too :-)). I tried to keep the additions/changes relatively minimalist, appropriately placed, easily referencing (but not directly including) details as appropriate (done via a link), and with the appropriate emphasis on key point(s).

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dreamhost list issues?
by Michael Paoli 01 Apr '09

01 Apr '09

Hmmm, just noticed, getting some errors on the dreamhost hosted list archives, e.g. this works: http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-announce-balug.org/2009-March/date.h… but following liks from there, e.g.: http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-announce-balug.org/2009-March/000125… doesn't work Seems to mostly (or entirely) be just some of the newer archived stuff (or stuff that *should* be archived). I'll check further and see what I find.

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