[Dovecot] OT: best way to move maildirs to another host ?
Hi,
I'm sorry because this mail is a little bit off-topic, but Timo's email titled "1.0RC7 Released" made me think about a possible issue for me.
I have to move an old dovecot installation (1.0b2) from an i386 server to a new x86_64 server running latest available dovecot.
My concern is about moving all my users' mail stored as maildir onto this new server. What would be the best way to do that ?
From Timo's comment on 32bits->64bits migration, I guess I'll have to move only the maildirs (and get rid of dovecot cache files), right ?
Next, from what I remember about maildir, the message names usually contain the inode so that the file name is unique. If I strictly move the files, I can be sure that the moved files won't have the same inodes number as what is in the name. Should I care ?
Or should I use something different than scp/rsync to perform the migration ?
Thanks for your answers, Regards,
Brice Figureau <brice+dovecot@daysofwonder.com>
On Friday 18 August 2006 09:27, Brice Figureau wrote:
... Next, from what I remember about maildir, the message names usually contain the inode so that the file name is unique. If I strictly move the files, I can be sure that the moved files won't have the same inodes number as what is in the name. Should I care ? ...
No.
Re. inode numbers: Checkout the spec on, http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html Your filenames should therefore be of the form, time.something.host where 'something' _may_ include the inode number (depends on your delivery mechanism). This is only meaningful insofar as it makes the filename unique - the host and timestamp fields also contribute to the uniqueness. When you move your messages, the timestamp will be 'in the past' for the new server, so even if you were to duplicate an inode number, the timestamp would still ensure uniqueness.
cheers,
Andrew.
On Fri, Aug 18, 2006 at 10:00:42AM +0100, Andrew Richards wrote:
On Friday 18 August 2006 09:27, Brice Figureau wrote:
... Next, from what I remember about maildir, the message names usually contain the inode so that the file name is unique. If I strictly move the files, I can be sure that the moved files won't have the same inodes number as what is in the name. Should I care ? ...
No.
Re. inode numbers: Checkout the spec on, http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html Your filenames should therefore be of the form, time.something.host where 'something' _may_ include the inode number (depends on your delivery mechanism). This is only meaningful insofar as it makes the filename unique - the host and timestamp fields also contribute to the uniqueness. When you move your messages, the timestamp will be 'in the past' for the new server, so even if you were to duplicate an inode number, the timestamp would still ensure uniqueness.
And the hostname would be different. :-)
GeertOn Fri, 2006-08-18 at 11:17 +0200, Geert Hendrickx wrote:
On Fri, Aug 18, 2006 at 10:00:42AM +0100, Andrew Richards wrote:
On Friday 18 August 2006 09:27, Brice Figureau wrote:
... Next, from what I remember about maildir, the message names usually contain the inode so that the file name is unique. If I strictly move the files, I can be sure that the moved files won't have the same inodes number as what is in the name. Should I care ? ...
No. [snipped] When you move your messages, the timestamp will be 'in the past' for the new server, so even if you were to duplicate an inode number, the timestamp would still ensure uniqueness.
And the hostname would be different. :-)
In fact no, since the new server will replace the old one, they do have the same hostname. But since the timestamps ensure uniqueness, I'm fine ;-)
Thank you for your answers,
Brice Figureau <brice+dovecot@daysofwonder.com>
participants (3)
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Andrew Richards
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Brice Figureau
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Geert Hendrickx