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@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