- Koha - lists.katipo.co.nz

Feb. 2024 possibility of Koha list delivery problems for Gmail, etc.
by Thomas Dukleth 01 Feb '24

01 Feb '24

There is the possibility that users of large email services, such as Gmail, Yahoo, etc. may have problems receiving some email sometime in February for lack of correct implementation of anti-spam authentication protocols. 1. Adequate Corrections Mostly Prepared But Extra Caution for the Koha General Mailing List. The Koha mailing lists should have all been corrected in a way which may be adequate while people work on setting up a new system for the mailing lists. However, the Koha general mailing is lagging behind good response perhaps in the hope that another party to take over the list would have taken over already, or perhaps it was partly fixed but someone forgot to update the serial number and I had omitted the serial number from my previous instructions. The new email delivery policy at large email providers, such as Gmail etc. could include some subscribers to the Koha general mailing list affecting their ability to receive email from sources not properly authenticated. The new policy has distinct rules for both large volume senders which could possibly be the mailing list with enough Gmail subscribers but the Koha general mailing list may need to meet the large volume sender requirement with DMARC support so that what is missing from the small volume sender requirement continues to be given a pass. 2. Related Issue for Koha Installations. If mail servers for systems sending notices etc. to patrons do not have all the expected configuration, patron recipients using Gmail, etc. may also be affected but probably would have had problems previously. It would be prudent to confirm that the mail server sending messages is reaching Gmail, etc. users without problem by having SPF and DMARC settings in the DNS and applies DKIM signatures to messages. 3. Effect of February Changes for Gmail, etc. Mailing List Subscribers. We do not know what will happen if anything but people should be prepared for the possibility of a disruption in receiving some email at large providers, such as Gmail, etc. which might not appear in the spam box or anywhere. If mailing list messages appear in the spam box, a filter can be added by people in their Gmail, etc. settings. If messages stop arriving even and do not even appear in the spam box the server sending email for the mailing list will need more configuration. Sending messages to the list will continue to work as will the mailing list archives which can be read while we set up a new system. If you are unlucky enough to confirm that no mailing list messages are arriving for you not even in your spam box and yet they appear in the mailing list archive you may report that the issue affects this mailing list system which they use, Gmail etc. in https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=34927 . The mailing list would be shown to need more server configuration while people work on setting up a new system. Meanwhile, you might also try at least temporarily resubscribing to the mailing list from a different email provider with less strict authentication policies for delivering messages. Mailing lists are not the primary target of the new stricter policies for Gmail, etc. but they are included. Mailing list messages would have failed long ago for Gmail, etc. except that we have the advantage of having authentication attached to messages from the original author forwarded via the mailing list. They mostly carry the DKIM signature from the original author. Gmail has not recently been validating DKIM signatures which would fail when sent from the mailing list because of small changes when the message is resent by the mailing list with the mailing list footer, etc. Also, Gmail has recently been passing messages with SPF and DMARC records in the originating server DNS and no DKIM signatures. Relying on authentication from the original author as opposed to the mailing list forwarder is not correct for DMARC and DKIM and might now fail unless mailing lists are treated a little more leniently at least initially. Library of Congress run mailing lists which I examined a few days ago did not have DMARC mitigation for correct From header attribution as from the author via the mailing list address but did have a DMARC DNS record which is currently missing for the Koha general mailing list. Email originating from governments may have their own special rules for delivery at Gmail, etc. In my current testing, new subscription confirmation messages for the Koha general list do not appear in the Gmail, not even in the spam box. However, mailing list message delivery to Gmail etc. may continue to have a free pass from the authentication of the original author's message. The need for DMARC support authenticating the mailing list as the actual originator of messages on the mailing list as opposed to the message author has been raised previously and it has been tested on the Koha-devel mailing list and may now be implemented on all the Koha mailing lists except for the general list. 4. Please be Nice to the People Who Gave Koha to the World. The Koha general mailing list is a special problem only because Katipo for which we are all grateful for giving Koha to the world no longer has the capacity to actively maintain the Koha general mailing list which has been fine as the existing configuration was good for a very long time and did not seriously require maintenance until recently. Even though DMARC support is a trivial matter of changing three lines and (maybe updating a DNS serial number for 4 lines), it has not happened for Katipo in the past few months since I have raised the issue. It may be possible that people assisting Rachel Hamilton-Williams are not certain where DNS is configured for lists.katipo.co.nz to update that record for DMARC support. DNS configuration could be at the domain registrar, some intermediate service, some VPS hosting provider, or on the very system which runs the katipo.co.nz server or lists.katipo.co.nz server. If using BIND for DNS line to add would be: _dmarc.lists.katipo.co.nz. IN TXT "v=DMARC1; p=none" or the equivalent in some other system where the leading underscore is needed and the policy is "p=none" matches the DNS configuration for the the BibLibre managed Koha mailing lists such as the Koha-devel list. If using BIND, the zone file where lists.katipo.co.nz is configured would need a serial number update. The BIND9 daemon would also restart. Maybe a change was made without a serial number update or daemon restart. There are two equally trivial Mailman configuration changes also needed but a DNS update for DMARC comes first. I have sent messages but response discussion was only about having another party take over running the mailing list for more active maintenance which would necessarily take time and the Koha community is pursuing a new system which takes time. 5. New System Fixes Everything Except New Problems. Please be patient. People are working on setting up, configuring, testing etc. a new system which can give people email for doing everything and a message forum for people who prefer forums instead of email which is important because mailing list engagement is declining everywhere. People need time from the other more pressing tasks of every day to work on all that is necessary for a fully working system. I have weeks of research into various issues for configuration, bugs, some tests etc. If we rush things we may have much unhappiness with any of a variety of common problems: from email not working properly;posts mangled; message lists jumbled where distinctive content is difficult to find; database backups silently corrupted and not restoring after a software update; contented list readers having their accounts deleted after a time; etc. People need to take time to do things reasonably well so that unpleasant surprises are minimised. I expect that it may take several weeks to a few months for a new system to be well setup, configured, tested, reconfigured, and retested before we should have confidence in a new system informed by the problems which other people had before us. Meanwhile, fixing DMARC on Mailman 2.1 which we are running is trivial by comparison. 6. Reference. See the message I posted on the Koha-devel mailing list about prospective delivery problems especially the prospect for the Koha general mailing list, "[Koha-devel] Feb. 2024 prospects of Koha lists delivery problems for Gmail, etc." - https://lists.koha-community.org/pipermail/koha-devel/2023-November/048441.… . [I resolved the ARC permissions problem mentioned in the message by having the startup script change the permissions but with DMARC Gmail has been satisfied in my testing even when DKIM and ARC are not present.] Please report verified mailing list receipt problems in "Bug 34927 - Adding DMARC compatibility to mailing lists" - https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=34927 . [Once someone has reported that mailing list X messages are not being accepted by subscribers using big service Y , not even in the spam box, we do not need the same information again. Not every user of some big mail service may have the same experience because such large services do not tend to implement changes worldwide all at the same time.] Thomas Dukleth Agogme 109 E 9th Street, 3D New York, NY 10003 USA http://www.agogme.com +1 212-674-3783

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Unable to hide login screen on Koha OPAC
by bongiwe＠uks.co.za 31 Jan '24

31 Jan '24

Hi I would like to make our KOHA OPAC open to the public without them having to login. I have edited the OPACUserJS entry and put in the following string, $("#login").hide(); The login screen is still there after saving this. What could I be doing wrong? Kind regards, Bongiwe Shongwe

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koha-US February 2024 Events & Meetings
by Kristi Krueger 29 Jan '24

29 Jan '24

Hello! koha-US online meetings and events are free and open to all. See our calendar for a full list: http://koha-us.org/calendar/. For Google Calendar users, add our events calendar to your list for easy access to meeting times and links: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/1?cid=a29oYS11cy5vcmdfZG1xb2pkczE5Zn… *Meetings* General Meeting - Wednesday, February 07 @ 8:30a PT / 11:30a ET / 15:30 UTC Board Meeting - Wednesday, February 14 @ 8:30a PT / 11:30a ET / 15:30 UTC *Special Interest Groups* Cataloging - Thursday, February 01 @ 8:00a PT / 11:00a ET / 15:00 UTC System Administration - Tuesday, February 13 @ 8:00a PT / 11:00a ET / 15:00 UTC Circulation - Thursday, February 8 @ 8:00a PT / 11:00a ET / 15:00 UTC Acquisitions - Tuesday, February 20 @ 9:00a PT / 12:00p ET / 16:00 UTC Web Development - Thursday, February 15 @ 10:00a PT / 1:00p ET / 17:00 UTC Consortia - Thursday, February 22 @ 9:00a PT / 12:00p ET / 16:00 UTC Demonstration Instance - on hiatus Visit http://koha-us.org/special-interest-groups/ to learn more and sign up for topic-specific mailing lists. Most meetings and events are recorded and made available at https://www.youtube.com/kohaus Kristi Krueger koha-US Secretary secretary(a)koha-US.org

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TLS MySQL Connection Without Mutual Authentication
by Schetnan, Richard Reed 29 Jan '24

29 Jan '24

Hello, We've successfully connected our Koha site (version 22.11.12.000) to an Azure Database for MySQL flexible server without TLS encryption, but we've been unable to connect to the Azure MySQL database with TLS encryption enabled and required. The reason for this appears to be that Koha seems to require mutual TLS, which is not supported by the Azure MySQL database. According to the Microsoft documentation (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/mysql/flexible-server/how-to-connec…) TLS clients use a public SSL CA certificate to allow for encrypted communication, and clients are authenticated at the server by usernames and passwords. This all works great from the MySQL command line interface. But in Koha, the koha-conf.xml configuration file calls for a CA certificate and also for client and client key certificates for client authentication with mutual TLS. This works for a local MySQL database but not for a remote Azure MySQL database because the Azure MySQL database does not provide a way to configure the CA certificate, server public key certificate, and server private key, which must be configured correctly for mutual TLS to work . Is there a way to connect to a remote MySQL database with TLS through the use of a CA certificate for encryption and username and password for authentication and without mutual TLS (that is, without the use of certificates and keys for authentication)? If not, can we put in a bug fix to enable and allow that functionality? Thanks! Richard

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Koha Community Newsletter: January 2024
by Koha Newsletter 29 Jan '24

29 Jan '24

The Koha Community Newsletter for January 2024 is here: https://koha-community.org/koha-community-newsletter-january-2024/ Many thanks to everyone who submitted articles and news to this newsletter! Please feel free to email me with any corrections or suggestions. -- Michael Kuhn Editor, Koha Community Newsletter

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OPAC Ask for a discharge
by Kazım ŞENTÜRK 24 Jan '24

24 Jan '24

Hello, When our patrons apply to discharge, if they hold a material there is a warning message about returning the items. We fine our patrons if they do not return the items timely, and in OPAC we would like to generate a warning message for the applicants who have to pay the fines before the discharge. Is it possible to set up a message for those users? Best regards Kazım ŞENTÜRK Kütüphane Müdür V. Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi Kütüphane ve Dokümantasyon Daire Başkanlığı Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin Merkez Kütüphanesi Görükle Yerleşkesi Nilüfer / Bursa

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Security configuration changes for Elasticsearch 7 and Koha
by Aleisha Amohia 23 Jan '24

23 Jan '24

Hello everybody We encountered a few issues with the security configuration required for Elasticsearch 7.17 since upgrading from ES6. We started with the minimal security setup documentation https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.17/security-minim… and we have a cluster with multiple nodes, so moved on to the basic security setup documentation https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.17/security-basic… but found we were getting all kinds of errors that we didn't know how to handle. Has anyone else implemented security for a multi-node Elasticsearch 7 cluster that could provide some insights? -- *Aleisha Amohia (she/her)* Technical Lead | Rōpū kohinga *Catalyst.Net Limited - Expert Open Source Solutions* *Catalyst.Net Ltd - a Catalyst IT group company* Tel: +64 4 803 2259 or +61 3 9116 2642 | www.catalyst.net.nz <http://www.catalyst.net.nz> Follow Catalyst Koha on Twitter <https://twitter.com/catalystkoha> | Subscribe to the Catalyst Koha newsletter <https://catalyst.us4.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=62457ff5060d15ee3c07d3fc4&…> Catalyst Logo CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email is intended for the named recipients only. It may contain privileged, confidential or copyright information. If you are not the named recipient, any use, reliance upon, disclosure or copying of this email or its attachments is unauthorised. If you have received this email in error, please reply via email or call +64 4 499 2267.

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Re: [Koha] How to copy patron permissions?
by BRANNON, CHRISTOPHER 22 Jan '24

22 Jan '24

Michael, I've had some jQuery in the Koha library for quite a while. You should take a look at https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/JQuery_Library#Add_clear_and_preset_pe… There are 3 versions of this for different versions of Koha, but this latest one includes a clear permissions button, a couple of preset permission buttons, and a copy permissions button. Please check it out. We also did a video tutorial on this enhancement in season one of The Terrific Every-Other-Thursday Training Videos. You can find that here: https://youtu.be/M6aQITCJY0U. ___________________________ Christopher Brannon IT Coordinator 702 E Front Ave Coeur d'Alene, ID 83814 (208)769-2315 Ext. 456 cbrannon(a)cdalibrary.org www.cdalibrary.org Keep tabs on us at: Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2022 10:39:58 +0200 From: Michael Kuhn <mik(a)adminkuhn.ch> To: Koha <koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz> Subject: [Koha] How to copy patron permissions? Message-ID: <abc69231-a587-77d5-01d2-7f98e5b16174(a)adminkuhn.ch> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Hi Is it possible to copy the permissions of another patron when creating a new one? I always thought this would happen when copying/duplicating an existing patron. But when I actually tried it today the permissions were not there with the new patron and I had to set them manually. Best wishes: Michael Kuhn

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Next Koha Documentation meeting
by Charillon, Aude 22 Jan '24

22 Jan '24

Hello, The next Koha Documentation team meeting will take place on Wednesday 31 January at 15:00 UTC (check the date and time in your timezone: https://greenwichmeantime.com/time-gadgets/event-time/share/?name=Koha%2520… ) All details on how to join and what we're planning to discuss are on the meeting agenda https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Documentation_meeting_31_January_2024 As for previous meetings, we will be using a Jitsi meeting link for the discussions. Here's a preview of what's on the agenda this month: - finally starting our overall review of what we want the manual to contain (use cases? workflows?) and how it should appear; - getting updates on what everybody has been working on; - deciding whether we want to plan more online documentation workshops (note: the next one is taking place on Tuesday 23 January - see https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Documentation_Team_-_Drop-in_sessions See you there?) If you are curious about how the Koha manual gets made (and what we're doing to improve it), please join us! Thanks, Aude [aude_c on Koha IRC] Documentation Manager for the 24.05 cycle Aude Charillon Librarian | Customer Services Consultant PTFS Europe aude.charillon(a)ptfs-europe.com

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The Terrific Every-Other-Thursday Training Video | 410 | Bug 26520 and the Messaging Preference Bug
by BRANNON, CHRISTOPHER 18 Jan '24

18 Jan '24

This week George will inform everyone about a messaging preference bug - but don't worry! His ability to notify you of this dastardly outcome is completely unaffected by this bug. This issue will not affect most workflows, but it is important to know about. It also never hurts to add your comments to the bug. https://youtu.be/vtjWbfQhHCU Sincerely, Christopher Brannon koha-US Admin

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