mainSavannah Administration - Support: sr #110917, dead links on older email archive...

 
 

sr #110917: dead links on older email archive pages

Submitter:  Dave <barx>
Submitted:  Wed 09 Aug 2023 10:30:29 AM UTC
   
 
Category:  Project mailing lists Priority:  3 - Low
Severity:  4 - Important Status:  None
Privacy:  Public Assigned to:  carlc
Operating System:  None Open/Closed:  Open
* Mandatory Fields

Add a New Comment Rich Markup
   

Jump to the original submission

Mon 18 Nov 2024 09:53:41 PM UTC, comment #13: 

comment #12:

> The mail tools aren't too monolithic, the archive files are just
> files.  I am hopeful that some type of link-transformation
> inline could make these links work,


Yeah, the substitution required is simple and consistent, so it doesn't seem like a technical challenge.  The main hurdles are access and then figuring out where to make the edits.  Or so it seems to an outsider.

Dave <barx>
Sun 17 Nov 2024 02:29:02 PM UTC, comment #12: 

comment #11:

> comment #9:
> > I haven't had a chance to look into restricting those links,
>
> Thanks, Corwin.  To clarify, I don't think any links need to be restricted, but corrected. 


That was badly applied spellcheck, I'm afraid.  The term I intended to use was "resurrected", not restricted.

comment #11:

> A bunch of the archive pages point to a long-defunct ftp:// URL, but there is a valid https:// URL containing the correct mbox file for each period.


Thanks.

comment #11:

>
> Thanks, Corwin.  To clarify, I don't think any links need to be restricted, but corrected.  A bunch of the archive pages point to a long-defunct ftp:// URL, but there is a valid https:// URL containing the correct mbox file for each period.


Right. Thank you, my mistake.  In fact lists is where I more recently requested (and received) access (to look into this), but where I have added a bunch of fail2ban rules "recently" (instead of working on this). I'm starting to know my way around there. 

Anyway, that means I'm not blocked by access and also it's unlikely a local sandbox is really very important to (e.g.) avoiding breaking things as I try stuff.  The mail tools aren't too monolithic, the archive files are just files.  I am hopeful that some type of link-transformation inline could make these links work, at least for the case where we are accessing them online (vs downloading them, ourselves).
summary

Corwin Brust <carlc>
Site Administrator
Wed 13 Nov 2024 12:19:58 AM UTC, comment #11: 

comment #9:

> I haven't had a chance to look into restricting those links,


Thanks, Corwin.  To clarify, I don't think any links need to be restricted, but corrected.  A bunch of the archive pages point to a long-defunct ftp:// URL, but there is a valid https:// URL containing the correct mbox file for each period.

Dave <barx>
Tue 12 Nov 2024 10:04:45 PM UTC, comment #10: 

Corwin, I'm confused. This ticket doesn't seem to be about debbugs at all, but about mailman archives?

Karl Berry <karl>
Site Administrator
Tue 12 Nov 2024 09:16:51 PM UTC, comment #9: 

Responding again, as I realize I probably jumped on what is likely a subplot for you, Dave.

I haven't had a chance to look into restricting those links, but I'm slightly closer to a little of the debbugs code, with a clear goal of making a sandbox I can fool with.  Thanks for the nudge, I'll look into those archives as soon as I might be likely to know how to deploy them, if I succeed.  (Access has not turned out to be any issue, I've been helping lately with fail2ban for that machine, in fact.  Much less general grinding on it by things that obeying robots.txt (and maybe should be hitting an archive, instead), I can report.

Corwin Brust <carlc>
Site Administrator
Tue 12 Nov 2024 09:09:58 PM UTC, comment #8: 

comment #7:

> Thanks, Corwin!  Did you find out anything more about those links?  If this looks like something you won't have access to, I can try emailing the address Karl posted in comment #4.


My pleasure.  Not really.  I mentioned it to a few people, now expressly including Karl.  Still pretty scary looking, to me.  Get everyone all worked-up, just spitballing.  In fact, while I have the original message within my email, I double checked this ticket do not contain it, thus cannot AFAIK be providing a publically accessible means of hosting the specific "weird information" OP might have seemed to contain.  My computer didn't do anything funny when I looked at again, just now.  It's all just very bizarre.

Corwin Brust <carlc>
Site Administrator
Tue 12 Nov 2024 08:29:06 PM UTC, comment #7: 

Thanks, Corwin!  Did you find out anything more about those links?  If this looks like something you won't have access to, I can try emailing the address Karl posted in comment #4.

Dave <barx>
  Spam posted by _366584
Sun 03 Mar 2024 02:39:40 PM UTC, comment #5: 

I will look into this; I believe I have access needed to poke at the debbugs server and see what can be done.  At this point I'm not 100% confident that's the correct server (where the archives live), so I have a bit of a learning curve, aside which this isn't the top priority ticket in the queue (yet).

If other teammembers are interested (and have access setup) to work on this, please feel free to grab the ticket to work on it.

Corwin Brust <carlc>
Site Administrator
Tue 30 Jan 2024 10:51:46 PM UTC, comment #4: 

Hi Dave - very understandable that you'd post here. I'm sorry no one replied to your first post. No answer yet from the sysadmins about updating the lists.gnu.org web pages, but there was a machine crash last night and I'm sure they're scrambling, along with all their usual overload ...

Anyway, here's no one place for all *.gnu.org web pages. I guess generically there is webmasters@gnu.org, and they know how to forward if necessary. The specific exception here is that for anything related to mail, archives/delivery/whatever, -email is unavailable- is probably the best. Although a few volunteers have limited access to the mail machine, there are many mail-related things only the sysadmins can do.

All the best,
Karl

Karl Berry <karl>
Site Administrator
Tue 30 Jan 2024 01:49:15 AM UTC, comment #3: 

Ah, sorry for posting this request to the wrong forum.  Where's the right place to report broken links on gnu.org web pages?

Dave <barx>
Mon 29 Jan 2024 10:55:48 PM UTC, comment #2: 

Hi Dave - thanks for the report, and sorry for the belated reply. Savannah people can't edit those pages, and I doubt the FSF sysadmins will want to, but I'll ask.

There's no way to redirect ftp urls, as far as I know. I guess an ftp server could conceivably be configured to return an http 302 or whatever, but that's not what the client (web browser) would be expecting, so I don't think it would work.

Karl Berry <karl>
Site Administrator
Sun 28 Jan 2024 11:54:28 PM UTC, comment #1: 

original submission:

> ftp://lists.gnu.org/groff/, which does not appear to be active
> (it times out every time I try to connect to it).


As this is still happening over 5 months later, I presume the URL is permanently defunct.

Dave <barx>
Wed 09 Aug 2023 10:30:29 AM UTC, original submission:  

The "download the archives in mbox format" link on http://lists.gnu.org/r/groff/2019-04/ and pages for all earlier periods (going back two decades) points to ftp://lists.gnu.org/groff/, which does not appear to be active (it times out every time I try to connect to it).  The same link on http://lists.gnu.org/r/groff/2019-05/ and pages for all later periods points to https://lists.gnu.org/archive/mbox/groff/, which works.

The same break happens in the same places for the archives of the groff-commit and bug-groff lists.  I didn't check any other lists, but it's plausible the problem exists across the board.

Can the "mbox format" links on these older pages be updated?  Alternately, can the old link redirect to the new one, if there's a way to configure an ftp:// URL to redirect to an http:// one?  Thanks.

Dave <barx>

 

(Note: upload size limit is set to 16384 kB, after insertion of the required escape characters.)

Attach Files:
   
   
Comment:
   

No files currently attached

 

Depends on the following items: None found

Items that depend on this one: None found

 

Carbon-Copy List
  • -email is unavailable- added by _366584 (Posted a comment)
  • -email is unavailable- added by carlc (Posted a comment)
  • -email is unavailable- added by karl (Posted a comment)
  • -email is unavailable- added by barx (Submitted the item)
  •  

    There are 0 votes so far. Votes easily highlight which items people would like to see resolved in priority, independently of the priority of the item set by tracker managers.

    Only logged-in users can vote.

     

    Follow 3 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2024-03-03 carlc Priority5 - Normal 3 - Low
        Severity2 - Minor 4 - Important
        Assigned toNone carlc

    Back to the top

    Powered by Savane 3.14-5139.
    Corresponding source code