Sympa

Modified:
Created:

[TOC]

Install Sympa

Install Sympa using apt:

apt-get --no-install-recommends install sympa libmime-types-perl libxml-sax-expat-perl libfile-nfslock-perl libsoap-lite-perl libcrypt-ciphersaber-perl libmail-dkim-perl doc-base mysql-server

Note: The command over will prevent Sympa from installing apache. It will install MySQL, if you want to use PostgreSQL, remove mysql-server.

WWSympa with Nginx

First of all, we need to make Sympa use FastCGI. This is done by setting use_fast_cgi to 1 in /etc/sympa/wwsympa.conf.

Install fcgiwrap

We need the fcgiwrap package to be able to execute the Sympa fcgi files.

apt-get install fcgiwrap

It is important to change the fcgiwrap user in the init.d script to nginx instead of www-data.

Configuring Nginx

In your Nginx configuration directory create a file called sympa_fcgi.conf. This will contain all the fastcgi settings for sympa. Add the following content:

gzip off;
fastcgi_pass   unix:/run/fcgiwrap.socket;
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(/sympa)(.+)$;
fastcgi_param  QUERY_STRING       $query_string;
fastcgi_param  REQUEST_METHOD     $request_method;
fastcgi_param  CONTENT_TYPE       $content_type;
fastcgi_param  CONTENT_LENGTH     $content_length;
fastcgi_param  PATH_INFO          $fastcgi_path_info;
fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_NAME        $fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_param  REQUEST_URI        $request_uri;
fastcgi_param  DOCUMENT_URI       $document_uri;
fastcgi_param  DOCUMENT_ROOT      $document_root;
fastcgi_param  SERVER_PROTOCOL    $server_protocol;
fastcgi_param  GATEWAY_INTERFACE  CGI/1.1;
fastcgi_param  SERVER_SOFTWARE    nginx;
fastcgi_param  REMOTE_ADDR        $remote_addr;
fastcgi_param  REMOTE_PORT        $remote_port;
fastcgi_param  SERVER_ADDR        $server_addr;
fastcgi_param  SERVER_PORT        $server_port;
fastcgi_param  SERVER_NAME        $server_name;
fastcgi_param  REMOTE_USER        $remote_user;
fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME    $document_root/wwsympa-wrapper.fcgi;
fastcgi_param  HTTP_HOST          $server_name;
fastcgi_intercept_errors on;

Then we need to create a vhost for every domain you want mailing list for. I have them all in one file called sympa_vhost.conf and the first entry looks like this:

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  lists.klatrerosen.no;                                  
    root         /usr/lib/cgi-bin/sympa;
    access_log   /var/log/nginx/lists.klatrerosen.no.access.log main;   
    error_log    /var/log/nginx/lists.klatrerosen.no.error.log;         
    error_page   403 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;

    rewrite ^/$ http://lists.klatrerosen.no/sympa/ permanent;

    location /static-sympa {
        alias /var/lib/sympa/static_content/;
        access_log off;
    }

    location /50x.html {
        root /usr/share/nginx/html;
    }

    location ~* \.(php|pl|py|jsp|asp|sh|cgi|bin|csh|ksh|out|run|o)$ {
        deny all;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }

    location / {
        include sympa_fcgi.conf;
    }
}

Now restart Nginx and you should be good to go.

Configuring virtual hosts

When creating a sympa vhost we need a couple of files and directories:

/etc/sympa/my.domain.tld/robot.conf
/var/lib/sympa/list_data/my.domain.tld/
/etc/nginx/conf.d/sympa_vhost.conf

The vhost configuration information can be found in the Nginx part.

robot.conf

Is the file that Sympa itself uses to define a vhost. It holds information about listmaster, who can create a list, where the web interface is located and the name. It has to be located in the Sympa configuration directory within a folder that is named after the domain it will cover.

Example:

Sympa list_data directory for domain

Sympa also needs a place to save list data. This will be in /var/lib/sympa/list_data/ in a folder named after the domain. To create:

mkdir /var/lib/sympa/list_data/my.domain.tld
chown -R sympa:sympa /var/lib/sympa/list_data