META: Upgrading newsgroup infrastructure

[Drew Nilium]

On 3/29/24 9:16 PM, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I've been putting off upgrading the mailing list server that hosts the
> list version of this newsgroup for far too long, enough that it's blocking
> a couple of needed major operating system upgrades that will also affect
> the infrastructure for running this group.  I'm hoping to finally tackle
> that this weekend.

Awesome! :D

> Unfortunately (and this is why it's taken so long), this requires a major
> change to the mailing list software from Mailman 2 to Mailman 3.  The old
> software is end of life and no longer supported, and Mailman 3 is
> substantially different, mostly in ways that I'm not that excited about.
> I did some research into possible alternatives, and this still seems like
> the best approach that doesn't require I put more effort into this than I
> have readily available, but there will be a few annoyances.

Oof, understandable.

> The main annoying changes are:
> 
> * The archives are... weird.  They're a bit more like a message board than
>    a mailing list archive, they don't use a fixed-width font (although I
>    will look again if that's configurable once I get the migration done and
>    can upgrade to the latest version), and there are upvotes and downvotes
>    and other things like that which seem rather pointless to me but that
>    don't seem to be configurable.  All of the archives prior to this
>    cutover will also continue to be available in the old format, but going
>    forward new messages will be only archived in the new system (called
>    Hyperkitty) because the old stuff has to go away since it requires an
>    unsupported version of Python.  The new archive does offer an mbox
>    download of messages, so at least in theory you can still download the
>    message and view it in a regular mail client, and of course the regular
>    mailing list function of sending you the messages will work as always.
> 
> * The new web site interface really wants you to create an account to use
>    it.  I would rather that you not have to do that, and I definitely don't
>    want to have even hashed versions of any important passwords, so if you
>    create an account, please use some password you don't use anywhere else.
>    You can still subscribe to the list without creating an account, but
>    unsubscribing from the list without creating an account can only be done
>    via email.  I think this is a poor design choice, but it doesn't appear
>    to be configurable.  You can always mail racc-leave at lists.eyrie.org to
>    unsubscribe (after the cutover) without having to create an account, or
>    just mail me directly if all else fails and I'll try to find your
>    address and remove it.

Feature cruft! >:/ Annoying, but we can live with it.

> I will also have to do some major surgery to make the integration with the
> newsgroup work properly.  I think I've figured out how to do that;
> hopefully it will work.

Woo! \o/ You can do it!

> I'm planning on doing this upgrade during this weekend.  During that time
> period there will be a lot of outages, a lot of software in motion, and
> probably a few bugs and unforseen problems.  Apologies in advance for the
> disruption, and make sure you keep anything you're posting over the
> weekend so that you can resend it if needed.  I will send the all-clear
> when I think everything is working.

Sounds good! Good luck, and thank you for all your work keeping this community 
going. :>

Drew "sure makes me happy" Nilium