The guy I got to do a test install once got the following on the admin pages:

  File "/usr/lib/python1.5/base64.py", line 32, in decode
    s = binascii.a2b_base64(line)
Error: Incorrect padding
So I put a try... except... around the line, and have it return 0 if
the exception fires.

1 files changed, 6 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/cgi/admin b/cgi/admin
index 17ff21a47..44505dcaf 100755
--- a/cgi/admin
+++ b/cgi/admin
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@
 To run stand-alone for debugging, set env var PATH_INFO to name of list
 and, optionally, options category."""
 
-__version__ = "$Revision: 655 $"
+__version__ = "$Revision: 686 $"
 
 import sys
 import os, cgi, string, crypt, types, time
@@ -100,8 +100,11 @@ def isAuthenticated(list, password=None, SECRET="SECRET"):
     if os.environ.has_key('HTTP_COOKIE'):
         c = Cookie.Cookie( os.environ['HTTP_COOKIE'] )
         if c.has_key(list_name + "-admin"):
-            inp = base64.decodestring(c[list_name + "-admin"].value)
-            check = md5.new(SECRET+list_name+SECRET).digest()
+	    try:
+               inp = base64.decodestring(c[list_name + "-admin"].value)
+               check = md5.new(SECRET+list_name+SECRET).digest()
+            except Error:  # the decodestring may return incorrect padding?
+               return 0
             if inp == check:
                 return 1
             else: