Backing up and Importing IMAP folders

[Aki Tuomi]

> On October 22, 2016 at 12:16 PM Jerry <jerry at seibercom.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> On Thu, 20 Oct 2016 20:36:35 +0300, Konstantin Khomoutov stated:
> 
> >On Thu, 20 Oct 2016 16:57:45 +0300 (EEST)
> >Aki Tuomi <aki.tuomi at dovecot.fi> wrote:
> >
> >[...]
> >> > Alternatively you can use `dsync` to perform backup with a native
> >> > Dovecot tool.  It's able to sync mailboxes of any Dovecot user --
> >> > including synchronizing a mailbox to an empty (yet) spool.
> >> > You'll need to do a bit of shell scripting which would spin around
> >> > calling `doveadm user *` and feeding its output to something like
> >> > 
> >> >   while read user; do \
> >> >     dest="/var/backup/dovecot/$user";
> >> >     mkdir -p "$dest" && chown vmail:vmail "$dest" \
> >> >       && chmod 0755 "$dest"
> >> >     dsync -u "$user" backup "maildir:$dest" \
> >> >   done
> >> > 
> >> > Note that you will only need this if you don't want to shut down
> >> > Dovecot to copy its mail spool out.  
> >> 
> >> You can also use doveadm backup -A maildir:%u/  
> >
> >Could you please elaborate?
> >
> >I have a typical "virtual users" setup where I do have
> >
> >  mail_home = /var/local/mail/%Ln
> >  mail_location = maildir:~/mail
> >
> >and everything is stored with uid=vmail / gid=vmail (much like
> >described in the wiki, that is).
> >
> >I'd like to use a single call to `doveadm backup -A ...` to back up the
> >whole /var/local/mail/* to another location
> >(say, /var/backups/dovecot/) so that is has the same structure, just
> >synchronized with the spool. (The purpose is to then backup the
> >replica off-site).
> >
> >I tried to call
> >
> >  doveadm backup -A maildir:/var/backups/dovecot/%u
> >
> >and it created a directory "/var/backups/dovecot/%u" (with literal
> >"%u", that is), created what appeared to be a single mailbox structure
> >under it and after a while scared a heck out of me with a series of
> >error messages reading
> >
> >dsync(user1): Error: Mailbox INBOX sync: mailbox_delete failed: INBOX
> >can't be deleted.
> >dsync(user2): Error: Mailbox INBOX sync: mailbox_delete failed: INBOX
> >can't be deleted.
> >...
> >
> >for each existing user.
> >
> >It appears that it luckily failed to delete anything in the source
> >directory (though I have no idea what it actually tried to do).
> >
> >Reading the doveadm-backup(1) multiple times still failed to shed a
> >light for me on how to actually backup the whole maildir hierarchy for
> >all existing users.
> >
> >So, the question: how do I really should go about backing up the whole
> >mailbox hierarchy in the case of virtual users?
> 
> I am experiencing the same problem as Konstantin. Is this s bug or
> expected behavior.
> 
> -- 
> Jerry

I think it's not exactly a bug. But I think it should be expanded. I'll see if we can get that sorted. 

Aki