Was able to execute the process as root with "doveadm -D backup -Ru tst tcp:10.0.1.212:12354" after updating some destination side configuration options that do not appear to be documented in the link provided, but there are a few errors that I am unable to understand or correct.
- Debug: open(/proc/self/io) failed: Permission denied - This file is read only for root and permissions cannot be modified.
- Error: Mailbox INBOX sync: mailbox_delete failed: INBOX can't be deleted. - Not sure why a mailbox would need to be deleted other than the backup is using a delete and recreate to retain only current emails, assuming this is on the destination server.
- All emails for tst account are deleted from the source server - This is a significant issue when only copies should be made for a backup.
Full log is attached.
Any additional insights would be greatly appreciated, Bryan
May 15, 2026 10:01 AM, "Aki Tuomi" <aki.tuomi@open-xchange.com> wrote:
Yeah, you can do migration with dsync or imap between 2.3 and 2.4
Aki
On 15/05/2026 16:10 EEST Bryan Simmons <bcs@nanomail.net> wrote:
Aki,
Thank you for the guidance. Just to confirm, doveadm/imap based migration is the section under "Migrating Mailboxes from Another Dovecot Server" in the link referenced below since this migration will be between servers?
Seems an upgrade from dovecot 2.3.21 (current version on source server) to 2.4.2 (installed version on the destination server) would be appropriate before migrating any user accounts based on information from some of the other posts regarding migration.
Thanks , Bryan
On 5/13/26 13:41, Aki Tuomi via dovecot wrote: On 13/05/2026 20:31 EEST Bryan Simmons via dovecot <dovecot@dovecot.org> wrote:
Moving postfix and dovecot to a new server including all current users and emails. There exists several dovecot files in each user mail directory:
dovecot.index dovecot.index.cache dovecot.index.log dovecot-keywords dovecot.list.index.log dovecot.mailbox.log dovecot-uidlist dovecot-uidvalidity dovecot-uidvalidity.612d3d34
Should these files be migrated also or will dovecot recreate them as needed?
Thank you, Bryan
https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.4/core/admin/migration.html#migrating-mailboxes
I would recommend seeing this. Depending on your mailbox format, it can be important that those files are copied, but I would suggest doveadm/imap based migration.
Aki
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