[Dovecot] Best way to migrate from Qpopper to Dovecot

[Torsten]

Hi David,

thanks for your suggestions.
You`re right, if I use rsync the smtp service on the old maschine could be active when copying the mboxes.
Without rsync a loss of emails is possible.

Another thing crossed my mind, on the new maschine we have a new directory structure like "/var/mail/domain/first_letter_of_username/username/maildir/". The directory structure on the old system is flat like "var/mail/username".
So I have to script a lot.
Hmm let`s see, maybe I use my second alternative (no migration of data).

Thanks
Torsten


On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:39:03 +0000, David McBride <dwm at tastycake.net> wrote:
> 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
>