[Pkg-mlmmj-devel] Bug#804436: mlmmj: installs incorrectly formatted job to /etc/crontab when creating a list

[Phil Reynolds]

On Thu, 24 Mar 2016 05:51:20 +0000
Chris Knadle <Chris.Knadle at coredump.us> wrote:

> severity 804436 important
> retitle 804436 mlmmj: tells user to add malformed entry
> to /etc/crontab thanks

Hmmm... as I explain below, in my case it merely went ahead and did it.

> However after running '/usr/bin/mlmmj-make-ml -L testlist2 -s
> /var/spool/mlmmj -a -c mlmmj' to create a mailing list it outputs the
> following text:
> 
>    If you're not starting mlmmj-maintd in daemon mode,
>    don't forget to add this to your crontab:
>    0 */2 * * * "/usr/bin/mlmmj-maintd -F
> -L /var/spool/mlmmj/testlist2/"
> 
> and this is the bug: it tells the admin running the mailing list to
> modify /etc/crontab when it's not necessary to do so, and in a way
> that will break things.  It's not obvious that the cron job added
> in /etc/cron.d/mlmmj exists and runs mlmmj-maintd on all mailing
> lists as this isn't mentioned in the README.Debian.gz.  Furthermore
> because it's done as a cron job this would not be considered "daemon
> mode" and thus even if the user found this out they still may be
> misled into thinking that adding the malformed entry
> into /etc/crontab is needed.
 
Just to clarify this, it did not tell me to add the entry, it just went
ahead and did it, on the wheezy setup I used... had it told me to do
it, I'd have spotted the error. The behaviour may have changed between
versions, perhaps. However, as you say, it seems to be unnecessary
anyway.

-- 
Phil Reynolds
mail: phil-debian at tinsleyviaduct.com
Web: http://phil.tinsleyviaduct.com/