Help migrating a mailbox...

[Willy Gardiol]

Hi!
i have a question for you guys, i have been playing with this issue for 
a while and i am a bit lost.

I have dovecot 2.2.16 on a Gentoo linux server, which run a couple of 
email domains, linked with postfix.

I have a huge (>4gb) Outlook PST file which contains a backup coming 
from a new user, he used to have this backup on his old email system and 
i need to dump it into his new email account on my server. This is just 
a "old" backup which needs to be kept for reference, there is no need to 
preserve any ID/UID/GUID whatever.

So, i found the "readpst" util which is capable ot reading the PST file 
and dump it's contents as mbox structure. (see 
http://bit-vonameln.de/email-migration-outlook-dovecot-imap/)

I did it and i got a 4.4gb folder with some sub-folders, attachments, 
and more files inside.

Then i spent most of a few days trying to have dovecot digest this and 
import it on top of the user new email address. With no luck.

I have being trying with doveadm sync but i cannot find how i need to do 
it.

Note that:
1) there is no local user, only the mail user (user at hisdomain.org)
2) i use maildir, the PST has been converted to mbox
3) dovecot is compiled with maildir and mbox support

I tried, for example:
server # export mail_location=mbox:/path/to/mbox/converted/emails
server # doveadm sync -u user at hisdomain.org -d
doveadm(user at hisdomain.org): Fatal: User has no mail_replica in userdb

Then i tried:
server # export mail_location=/home/vmail/hisdomain.org/user/maildir
server # doveadm sync -u user at hisdomain.org 
mbox:/path/to/mbox/converted/emails
dsync(user at hisdomain.org): Error: Mail locations must use the same 
virtual mailbox hierarchy separator (specify separator for the default 
namespace)

Also tried:
server # export mail_location=/home/vmail/hisdomain.org/user/maildir
server # doveadm sync -u user at hisdomain.org 
/path/to/mbox/converted/emails
doveadm(user at hisdomain.org): Fatal: 
execvp(/home/vmail/hisdomain.org/user/maildir) failed: Permission denied
dsync-local(user at hisdomain.org): Error: read(remote) failed: EOF 
(version not received)


My dovecot is configured to use "maildir", the most relevant part of my 
dovecot.conf is:
auth_debug = no
login_greeting = Dovecot ready.
mail_debug = no
auth_debug_passwords = no
auth_default_realm = mydomain.org
auth_mechanisms = plain login
auth_realms = <list of my domains here>
auth_verbose = no
base_dir = /var/run/dovecot/
disable_plaintext_auth = no
mail_uid=999
mail_gid=999
listen = *
mail_location = maildir:/home/vmail/%d/%n/maildir
protocols = imap sieve lmtp

(i can add omitted lines if needed)


either i am not undesrtanding anything, which is totally possible, or i 
am missing something big.

If anybody on this list has any insight or suggestion, pelase advise!

ps: the destination mailbox is perfectly new and empty, it's already 
existing and the user can successfully login, send and receive emails. 
Dovecot works great, and i am operating locally on the server where i 
uploaded the converted mbox folders.


-- 
Willy Gardiol
willy at gardiol.org
www.gardiol.org
www.trackaway.org -> Track YOUR way the way you want!