Mailman fails to start on Plesk server: No such file or directory: ‘/var/lock/mailman/master-qrunner.hostname’

Symptoms

• Mailman fails to start on a Plesk for Linux server:

  # service mailman status
  ● mailman.service – GNU Mailing List Manager
  Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/mailman.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
  Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2017-01-26 02:49:29 GMT; 1min 3s ago
  Process: 488 ExecStart=/usr/lib/mailman/bin/mailmanctl -s start (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
  Process: 476 ExecStartPre=/bin/chmod 660 /var/log/mailman/error (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 465 ExecStartPre=/bin/chown mailman:mailman /var/log/mailman/error (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS
  Process: 449 ExecStartPre=/bin/touch /var/log/mailman/error (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 413 ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/install -m644 -o root -g root /usr/lib/mailman/cron/crontab.in /etc/cron.d/mailman (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 337 ExecStartPre=/usr/lib/mailman/bin/mailman-update-cfg (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

  plesk mailmanctl[488]: IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: ‘/var/lock/mailman/master-qrunner.plesk.323.1’
  OR
  plesk mailmanctl[14938]: IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: ‘/var/lock/mailman/master-qrunner.plesk.

• Cannot change the mailling list password:

  PLESK_ERROR: Error: Failed to change password: listmng failed: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File “/usr/lib/mailman//bin/change_pw”, line 211, in <module>
  main()
  File “/usr/lib/mailman//bin/change_pw”, line 165, in main
  mlist.Lock()
  File “/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py”, line 161, in Lock
  self.__lock.lock(timeout)
  File “/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/LockFile.py”, line 243, in lock
  self.__write()
  File “/usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/LockFile.py”, line 422, in __write
  fp = open(self.__tmpfname, ‘w’)
  IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: ‘/var/lock/mailman/master-qrunner.plesk.323.1’
  listmng: Error: failed to change password for ‘master-qrunner’ .

Cause

The directory /var/lock/mailman/ is missing or it was created with the incorrect permissions on server boot.

Resolution

Note: This article is intended for use by server administrators. In case there is no administrative SSH access to the server, contact the server administrator or server provider.

1. Connect to the server via SSH

2. Create the directory /var/lock/mailman/

   # [ ! -d “/var/lock/mailman” ] && mkdir /var/lock/mailman/

3. Set the correct permissions and ownership for the directory /var/run/mailman:

   # chown root:mailman /var/run/mailman && chmod 775 /var/run/mailman

If the issue still persists after a server reboot, check the validity of package mailman using the command rpm -V mailman (on Debian and Ubuntu, the command is debsums mailman). Check the output meaning (use https://linux.die.net/man/8/rpm (Verify Options) for reference) and fix the reported issues. For example:

# rpm -V mailman
……G.. /usr/lib/mailman
.M….G.. /usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.py
……G.. /usr/lib/mailman/Mailman/mm_cfg.pyc
……G.. /usr/lib/mailman/cgi-bin
……G.. /usr/lib/mailman/cron
……G.. /usr/lib/mailman/pythonlib

The output means that group permissions for the files has been modified. To fix the issue, set the correct permissions for reported directories:

# chown -R root:mailman /usr/lib/mailman/pythonlib
# chown -R root:mailman /usr/lib/mailman/cgi-bin
# chown -R root:mailman /usr/lib/mailman/cron
# chown root:mailman /usr/lib/mailman
# chmod…