Initial Replication

[Marc Roos]

Hi David, 

Afaik you have to put the 'old' emails before replicating on both, 
because replicating only works on new arriving.

I just migrated to a server on a different platform keeping same os and 
dovecot version. One namespace had mbox storage which on the new server 
became mdbox.

For the mbox -> mdbox namespace I used this

doveadm backup -f -n inbox -F /root/backup-accounts.txt 
tcp:mailXX.local:542

Test first with one account, depending on the permissions of the 
directories on the destination, dovecot will create all the files.

I had a 2nd namespace that I needed to migrate that was already in 
mdbox. I decided the rsync that, because here it was 2 days vs 5 hours 
syncing.

After the rsync I did again the backup on that namespace

doveadm backup -f -n Archive -F /root/backup-accounts.txt 
tcp:mailXX.local:542

Then I ran a script counting messages in mailboxes of all users on both 
servers and a diff showed that everything was ok.

I guess if you handle it like this you will not loose a message. ;)




-----Original Message-----
From: David Morsberger [mailto:david at mmpcrofton.com] 
Sent: 29 December 2020 20:09
To: dovecot mailing list
Subject: Initial Replication

I searched the archives and do not see a question/answer for this. 

Should I perform a set of ordered steps after setting up replication? I 
have setup dovecot on both ends with identical config except for the 
remote hostname. 

Main concern is the existing server gets replicated to the new server. I 
want nothing from new server replicated to the old server. Risking 
"Trial and error" and "crossing fingers doesnt work with production 
emails

Specifically:

Do I need to setup the mail directories for the various virtual users on 
the remote? If so, do the directories need to empty?

Should I initially do a manually one-way synch using doveadm from the 
existing server? If so, is there a way of turning off automatic 
replication while the manual one runs?

Anything else?

T

David