backup v rsync

[Jeff Abrahamson]

On Sat, May 22, 2021 at 10:28:46PM +0200, Jeff Abrahamson wrote:

> I've been migrating from a dovecot 2.2.22 instance to a dovecot
> 2.3.7.2 instance.  [...]
>
> [...I failed with dsync and ended up using rsync, which almost
> works...]
>
> The main difference between the two servers, aside from the above,
> is a switch from
>
>     mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir
>
> to
>
>     mail_home = /var/mail/vmail/%d/%n
>     mail_location = maildir:/var/mail/vmail/%d/%n/mail:LAYOUT=fs
>     mail_privileged_group = mail
>
> I corrected permissions and ownership when I copied the data.
>
> Now I think the problem is that LAYOUT=fs means that I should have a
> slightly different folder hierarchy now.  The question is how best
> to fix this.
>
> I have things like this
>
>     .Archives.2020
>     .Archives.2020/new
>     .Archives.2020/tmp
>     .Archives.2020/cur
>
> when I think I should have things like this
>
>     Archives
>     Archives/2021
>     Archives/2021/new
>     Archives/2021/tmp
>     Archives/2021/cur

Just to provide documentation to future folks stumbling on this
question:

  * Yes, that did what I expected.
  * Yes, I know, that only worked because it was a one-off, don't try
    this for multiple users.                                        
  * Thunderbird remains relatively confused, mutt is perfectly happy.

In particular, Thunderbird doesn't want to forget about some older
folders and wasn't quick to learn about some of the new names.  In
addition, some mail messages show up in thunderbird dated at the time
of folder download even though they are clearly from quite a long
while before that.

In mutt, none of these problems appear.  Since I don't expect mutt to
be prescient or magical, I have to conclude this is a bug (or errant
feature) in thunderbird.

This list is about dovecot.  Why am I telling you about these two
MUAs?  Because it might be important to understand that thunderbird is
capable of throwing such red herrings is all.

Jeff Abrahamson
https://www.p27.eu/jeff/
https://www.mobilitains.fr/