When Mailman installation fails, it's usually a common error. Check these things first.

Permissions

Make sure that you have your permissions set on the file "mailman.cgi" so that it is executable. The exact mechanism of doing this is different on every operating system. Under Unix, make sure that the permissions on the file reads "-rwxr-xr-x" when you do an "ls -alt". You can set the permissions explicitly with the command "chmod 755 mailman.cgi". If you're using any other OS, ask an expert on your OS.

Make your web server run it as a script
Make sure that your web server understands that it is supposed to be running the script file as a CGI script. In most cases the clue to the server is the extension on the file. You tell your web server via its configuration that a file ending in ".cgi" (or ".pl" or whatever your copy is called) is a CGI script and that it should run your Mailman CGI file when you invoke it. If your web server isn't happy with the ".cgi" extension, feel free to rename it to ".pl" or ".runthis" or whatever makes your web server happy. If you change the extension or the name, of the MailMan script file then you don't have to change anything else. MailMan dynamically identifies its own location each time it runs. You may have to alter the configuration of your web server in order to run a CGI script on a new Apache installation, as outlined in our Unix installation guide.

If you are trying to install MailMan at a hosted web site, then your web hosting provider most likely already has some sort of a policy on how CGI scripts are supposed to work for your server. They should be able to tell you where the file needs to be placed, what it needs to be called, what the permissions need to be, etc. If they give you information along those lines and you just don't understand, then please contact us and we might be able to help. We're certainly happy to try.

Make sure that MailMan can read its own templates
Make sure that MailMan's templates are readable to your web server. Keep in mind that just because they are marked readable to you, they are not necessarily marked readable to your web server, since the server generally runs as a different Unix user. You probably want your permissions for your "t_*.htm" files to read "-rw-r--r--", which you can achieve with "chmod 644 t_*.htm". That configuration gives you the ability to alter the files, but it gives anybody in your system, including the web server user, permission to read the files.

Also make sure that MailMan's templates are located in the directory that your web server will set to the 'current' directory when MailMan runs. This will usually be the same directory that the script is located in, but not necessarily. Some web servers set the current directory to places other than where the script itself is located. If you have one of these servers and MailMan runs but your templates are missing, then the solution is most likely to explicitly set a configuration option at the top of the MailMan script that tells it where its templates are located.

If you are having problems and none of the above ideas help, or if you just don't even know how to handle some of the above suggestions, then just contact us for help. We're friendly, we promise. We'll even do it for you for a small fee if you need to just save some time.