Moving Mail for one Server to another

[btsteve]

I have my new QmailToaster Setup, now i need to move several hundered e-mail accounts over to the new server. i do not have access to the filesystem on the other server. Has anyone ever done this before. I read a post that said it might be able to be done with Fetchmail. I really do not want my users to loose what mail they currently have on the other server.

Thanks
Travis

[LogicX]

How do you expect to read and be able to transport all their mail w/o access to the filesystem?

I think you're SoL.

Here's the procedure I use to move mail:

1. Have a secondary MX up and running and working!
2. lower your TTL in DNS to 5 minutes or so. (try to do this 1-2 days in advance of the move)
2. install, configure, and test the mail setup on newserver
3. copy /var/qmail/control files from oldserver to newserver
4. copy /var/qmail/users from oldserver to newserver
5. copy /var/qmail/alias entries from oldserver to newserver
6. copy vpopmail db from oldserver to newserver
7. copy ~vpopmail/etc from oldserver to newserver if necessary
8. copy ~vpopmail/domains from oldserver to newserver
9. test everything on newserver again now authing against one of the domains you copied -- verify SSL services work, verify authing against submit, imap, pop3 works
10. shutdown ALL SERVICES (services stop; imap/pop3 stop) on oldserver and newserver
11. update the A record IP of the mailserver -- keep TTL low incase of problems!
12. do a final sync of ~vpopmail/domains data
13. bring up services on newserver (never again bring up services on oldserver)
14. test newserver yet again
15. flush DNS used by secondary MX, so it forwards mail correctly to newserver
16. in a day or two, set the TTL back to its normal value
17. hopefully you won't have to explain what happened to any users -- if you do, hopefully its a quick ipconfig /flushdns situation

Note:: to do all testing of newserver before DNS updates edit the hosts file on whatever machine you're testing from (including windows machines)
and add an entry for the hostname/IP of the newserver


the above does not take into account queue sitting on oldserver -- I never have any, so I don't think about it.

[matt]

You'll have to use a tool like fetchmail, as well as having access to all your acccounts usernames and passwords in order to pull their email off the old system. If you have their authentication information available and can't figure it out, consider hiring me and I'm sure we can make something work.

Matt

[btsteve]

I used fetchmail and it worked great.