ALT storage question

[Ralf Hildebrandt]

I want to migrate from a non-hashed storage to a hashed storage.
So I set this up:

mail_location = mdbox:/srv/vmail/%2.256Hu/%Lu/mdbox:ALT=/srv/vmail/%Ld/%Ln/mdbox

I rsynced the "old" mdbox-style mailbox from another machine to to /srv/vmail/%Ld/%Ln/mdbox
(/srv/vmail/charite.de/ralf.hildebrandt/mdbox in my case)

The mail_location /srv/vmail/c5/ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de was
non-existing. 

Then I connected using IMAP and tried to have a look at the INBOX:

Sep 27 11:15:15 imap(ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de): Debug: Effective uid=10000, gid=10000, home=/srv/vmail/c5/ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de
Sep 27 11:15:15 imap(ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de): Debug: Home dir not found: /srv/vmail/c5/ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de
Sep 27 11:15:15 imap(ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de): Debug: Namespace inbox: type=private, prefix=, sep=., inbox=yes, hidden=no, list=yes, subscriptions=yes location=mdbox:/srv/vmail/c5/ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de/mdbox:ALT=/srv/vmail/charite.de/ralf.hildebrandt/mdbox
Sep 27 11:15:15 imap(ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de): Debug: fs: root=/srv/vmail/c5/ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de/mdbox, index=, indexpvt=, control=, inbox=, alt=/srv/vmail/charite.de/ralf.hildebrandt/mdbox
Sep 27 11:15:15 imap(ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de): Debug: Namespace : /srv/vmail/c5/ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de/mdbox doesn't exist yet, using default permissions
Sep 27 11:15:15 imap(ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de): Debug: Namespace : Using permissions from /srv/vmail/c5/ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de/mdbox: mode=0700 gid=default
Sep 27 11:15:15 imap(ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de): Debug: Namespace : /srv/vmail/c5/ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de/mdbox/mailboxes/INBOX doesn't exist yet, using default permissions
Sep 27 11:15:15 imap(ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de): Debug: Namespace : Using permissions from /srv/vmail/c5/ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de/mdbox: mode=0700 gid=default
Sep 27 11:15:15 imap(ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de): Error: Mailbox INBOX has existing files in alt path, rebuilding storage to avoid losing messages
Sep 27 11:15:15 imap(ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de): Error: Failed to autocreate mailbox INBOX: Internal error occurred. Refer to server log for more information. [2014-09-27 11:15:15]
Sep 27 11:15:15 imap(ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de): Warning: fscking index file /srv/vmail/c5/ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de/mdbox/storage/dovecot.map.index
Sep 27 11:15:15 imap(ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de): Info: Disconnected: Logged out in=58 out=623

What is "Mailbox INBOX has existing files in alt path, rebuilding
storage to avoid losing messages" referring to? And why is this an
error?

After all that I reconnect, just to find an empty inbox. WTF? Why is
the ALT storage being ignored?



The ALT storage contains:

total 8
drwxr-xr-x 6 vmail vmail 4096 Aug 18 15:25 mailboxes
drwxr-xr-x 2 vmail vmail 4096 Sep 24 00:37 storage

and those two directories contain:

mailboxes:
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 3 vmail vmail 4096 Aug 18 15:25 Drafts
drwxr-xr-x 3 vmail vmail 4096 Aug 18 15:25 INBOX
drwxr-xr-x 3 vmail vmail 4096 Aug 18 15:25 Sent
drwxr-xr-x 3 vmail vmail 4096 Aug 18 15:25 Trash

storage:
-rw-r--r-- 1 vmail vmail  3552 Sep 25 14:47 dovecot.map.index.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 vmail vmail 20015 Sep 25 13:51 m.1

On the other hand, just moving
/srv/vmail/charite.de/ralf.hildebrandt/mdbox
to
/srv/vmail/c5/ralf.hildebrandt at charite.de
worked like a charm!

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