Mailman mailing list backup script

I’m sure there are some of these around already, but I have written a script to back up your Mailman mailing lists. It dumps the member roster and list configuration into separate text files, zips them up, emails them to you, and cleans up after itself.

The script is called mailmanBackup.py, and its syntax is pretty straightforward:
Usage: mailmanBackup.py listname <recipient> [<sender>]

If sender is not specified, the recipient is used as the sender. The recipient can also be a comma-separated list of email addresses.

Typical use would be to place a helper script like this /etc/cron.weekly:

#!/bin/sh
/usr/local/bin/mailmanBackup.py listname [email protected]

mailmanBackup.py is available under a CreativeCommons-Attribution license.

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8 Comments

  1. Dude, found one of your (2005) comments on WorldChanging. You’re me! But you’re smarter and better looking…except maybe I could kick your butt at Scrabble. Also, I was surprised that Doonesbury didn’t appear under the comics. Hmm. Too political?

    Anyway, you’ve clearly been dealing with stuff for years that I’m just getting into. Love to connect sometime. curt_beckmann at yahoo.

    I’ll be back.

  2. this is very good script and very helpful to get the mail backups easily.
    thanks

  3. Hi,

    I’m having a problem backing up a mailing list. It seems to be because the list name contains an ‘@’ symbol – the temporary directory has that character escaped with a backslash (‘\’). Can you provide any advice please?

    Thanks,
    Dan

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