[edk2-devel] mail-archive.com (secondary archive) feed resumed

["Laszlo Ersek" <lersek@redhat.com>]

Hi,

you may have noticed that the secondary archive at
<https://www.mail-archive.com/devel@edk2.groups.io/> stopped receiving
messages after 28 Jan 2024. The reason is described here:

  https://groups.io/static/reverifyfaq

A message about the reverification ("Update on Groups.io Reverification
Process") had also been sent to edk2 list owners and moderators, but
we've not done anything about it (to my knowledge) thus far, as the
reverification is a sensible thing for groups.io to do, and affected
members (humans) are indeed expected to re-verify.

However, that doesn't apply to the mail-archive.com bot.

It turns out that mail-archive.com is a subscriber to *several*
groups.io mailing lists. The "Action Required: Confirm Your Groups.io
Membership to Continue Receiving Group Emails" email sent out by
groups.io can be seen on the mail-archive.com "confirmation requests"
page:

  https://www.mail-archive.com/faq.html#newlist

-->

  https://www.mail-archive.com/archive@mail-archive.com/maillist.html

-->

  https://www.mail-archive.com/archive@mail-archive.com/msg56864.html
  https://www.mail-archive.com/archive@mail-archive.com/msg56866.html
  https://www.mail-archive.com/archive@mail-archive.com/msg56870.html
  https://www.mail-archive.com/archive@mail-archive.com/msg56871.html

(basically, four instances of the call upon verification), and each
instance lists several groups.io mailing lists (which the
mail-archive.com robot is a member of).

These emails offer two methods for re-verifying:

- responding to the message

- logging in to the web UI

Neither of those options work; we can't "respond" as the
mail-archive.com bot, and also cannot login on its behalf (it has no
password for the webui in the first place, and my attempt to ask for a
new password *also* failed -- the password reset email didn't reach the
"confirmation requests" list linked above).

So my only option was to forcibly delete the mail-archive.com bot from
the edk2-devel subscriber list, and then to re-invite it. ("Direct add"
without invitation is a paid-only feature on groups.io.) The invitation
email *did* show up on the confirmation requests list:

  https://www.mail-archive.com/archive@mail-archive.com/maillist.html

-->

  https://www.mail-archive.com/archive@mail-archive.com/msg56894.html

I clicked the invite confirmation link from that message, so now the
feed to mail-archive.com should be resumed. (Interestingly, on the
groups.io WebUI, in the subscriber list, the mail-archive.com robot is
not just listed as a brand new member at this point, but as a member
whose re-verification succeeded: it carries the "RS" badge.)

Thus, the secondary archive will have a 2 week long gap, essentially the
first half of February.

mail-archive.com is an important secondary archive because it offers
message-id-based lookup. "git am --message-id" captures patch email
message IDs in the commit messages, and then those can be used for
locating the related review discussion in the archive.

The URL format is the following -- using commit 0e9b124f9c67
("UefiCpuPkg/BaseXApic[X2]ApicLib: Implements AMD extended cpu
topology", 2024-01-31) as an example:

git show -s 0e9b124f9c67 | grep -i message-id

    Message-Id: <d93822d37fd25dafd32795758cf47263b432e102.1705549445.git.AbdulLateef.Attar@amd.com>

-->

  http://mid.mail-archive.com/d93822d37fd25dafd32795758cf47263b432e102.1705549445.git.AbdulLateef.Attar@amd.com
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
         |                    |
         |                    msgid of the patch email, from the commit
         |
         special FQDN for the message-id-based lookup

If you paste this URL into your browser, mail-archive.com performs the
lookup, and redirects to

  https://www.mail-archive.com/devel@edk2.groups.io/msg68931.html

You can see the original thread, the thread hierarchy at the bottom of
the page, and at the very bottom (on dark background), the message-id
itself is displayed in light gray, too.

Another nice benefit is that you can construct archive links immediately
after mailing out a patch, with git-send-email. The git-send-email log
contains the message identifier; you can paste that immediately into the
URL (and save the URL in a bugzilla comment, for example), without
having to check anything on the web at first. In fact, such links may
not work immediately (it takes mail-archive.com some time to index the
new message), but the link will *start* working *eventually*. IOW, you
don't depend on the archive to assign a unique identifier to your
posting (such as a groups.io message number); your local git tooling
will generate the message-id, and then mail-archive.com will just adhere
to it. I wish groups.io offered a similar search capability.

Laszlo



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