[Dovecot] Best way to migrate from Qpopper to Dovecot

[David McBride]

Torsten wrote:

> - stop services (smtp and pop3) on the old maschine
> - copy the mboxes to the new maschine
> - run a conversion script (for excample: "Perfect_maildir" 
> http://perfectmaildir.home-dn.net/)
> - start the services on the new maschine (smtp and Dovecot)

Hi,

So, parts of these processes can be parallelised:

* Copy mailbox data from old machine to the new one.  Leave production services
   running.
* Shut-down services on old machine.
* Update the mailbox data on the new machine using rsync.
* Convert mailboxes to Maildir format, eg using Perfect_maildir or mb2md.
* Start services on new server, update DNS aliases, etc.

Now, ideally, you'd do each of the above _per-user_ -- disabling just *one* 
account at a time whilst it was being updated.  This will require a bit more 
work and infrastructure support (eg a front-end POP/IMAP proxy).

Oh, and in principle, I see no reason why you can't have both SMTP services 
running at the same time..

Cheers,
David
-- 
David McBride <dwm at tastycake.net>