Best practices for backing up small mailserver to remote location

[Adi Pircalabu]

On 08-08-2018 7:48, Ian Evans wrote:
> My webserver also houses our mailserver. There's about six users on
> that mail system and I'm thinking it would be good to back up the
> mailboxes to my always on HTPC computer at home, which is reachable
> via a dynamic IP service.
> 
> I know (or think) I need to use doveadm-backup for this but rather
> than reinvent the wheel (or use the wrong wheel altogether) I'm
> wondering if anyone can recommend a good tutorial or wiki entry that
> shows the best way to loop through the users and send their backups to
> a remote server.

Assuming you're running *nix on your HTPC and can install your own 
software on it a safe, secure and reliable way of doing it is:
- Since you're on dynamic IP at home, set up a VPN tunnel using the 
mailserver as server and HTPC as client. OpenVPN is ubiquitous and 
widely supported.
- rsync your mailboxes using the tunnel connection.
This way you can back up your entire server, not only the mailboxes.
You can add doveadm in the mix if you want, or use imapsync and so on 
and so forth.

YMMV

-- 
Adi Pircalabu