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@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@hisdomain.org -d doveadm(user@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@hisdomain.org mbox:/path/to/mbox/converted/emails dsync(user@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@hisdomain.org /path/to/mbox/converted/emails doveadm(user@hisdomain.org): Fatal: execvp(/home/vmail/hisdomain.org/user/maildir) failed: Permission denied dsync-local(user@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@gardiol.org www.gardiol.org www.trackaway.org -> Track YOUR way the way you want!