dovecot - Dec 2014 - devoid mailbox status for mail reloaded from a tape backup

> On Dec 9, 2014, at 11:00 AM, Steffen Kaiser <skdovecot at
smail.inf.fh-brs.de> wrote:
> 
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> On Tue, 9 Dec 2014, Stephen Lidie wrote:
>>> On Dec 9, 2014, at 2:34 AM, Steffen Kaiser <skdovecot at
smail.inf.fh-brs.de> wrote:
>>> On Mon, 8 Dec 2014, Stephen Lidie wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I've only be able to status a mailbox for currently
existing users, is it possible to status a mailbox reloaded from tape to an
alternate location?  The user may or may not exist at this time, but I still
> 
>                        ^^^^^^
> 
>>>> need to inspect the mailbox ... thank you,
>> 
>> Well, although I am able to issue a mailbox status command regardless,
the implication was that the command displayed an empty string (nothing useful),
and thus a working example using files not in the locations specified by
mail_location would be useful. In my configuration mail_locations is defined as:
>> 
>> 	mail_location = mdbox:~/mail:INDEX=/var/dovecot/index/%u
>> 
>> So a command of the form ?doveadm mailbox status -u userName all INBOX?
uses mail_location as defined in dovecot.conf to locate the mail and index
files, and displays appropriate information about the specified user?s INBOX.
>> 
>> If I have mail and index files in an alternate location - restored from
a backup tape for example - how do I obtain data such as unseen, message count,
vsize, etc about mailboxes residing at that alternate location, a location not
pointed to by mail_location?  As I mentioned, ?doveadm import? allows one to
provide an alternate source location, but ?doveadm mailbox status? does not
AFAIK, thus, a sample command would be wonderful.
> 
> if the user does not exist at all, you could create a dummy
"restore" account, where you restore the data to and can use as any
other user.
> This would work for any existing user, too.
True, that was my last resort, because I'd have to go through
"channels" to get a real dummy username added to the University's
LDAP server, then I'd have to to an actual import, and finally the status.
> 
> For me this is working, too:
> 
> doveadm -o mail_location=maildir:/home/user2/Maildir mailbox status \
> -u user1 all INBOX
Eureka!! The magic incantation snippet I was seeking :) I had tried, variously,
placing this simple string:

	"mail_location=mdbox:/home/RESTORE/homeb/userName/mail:INDEX=/home/RESTORE/var/dovecot/index/userName"

at various points on the doveadm command line, I tried exporting the string as
the environment variables mail_location and MAIL_LOCATION, and I tried to find
some option that would accept an alternate mail_location. I even briefly scanned
the force code but saw immediately that that solution would be slow going :) I
just now tried to find where -o was documented, to no avail:

# man doveadm|egrep -i '\-o'
# man doveadm mailbox|egrep -i '\-o'
# man doveadm help|egrep -i '\-o'

So, where exactly did I fail to find -o documented?

Now I (or an operator) can pre-scan candidate mail files pulled from tape before
actually restoring them for a real user account, to help narrow down the
results. Did I mention that this is the exact solution I was hoping for?!

Many thanks,
Steve
> 
> shows the same as
> 
> doveadm mailbox status -u user2 all INBOX
> 
> but not the same as:
> 
> doveadm mailbox status -u user1 all INBOX
> 
> So, if you craft a good -o mail_location= and an "-u", which has
access permissions on filesystem level (e.g. if you are using system users), it
should work. Maybe, you need to specify "-o home=...", too.
> 
> - -- Steffen Kaiser
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On Tue, 9 Dec 2014, Stephen Lidie wrote:
>> On Dec 9, 2014, at 11:00 AM, Steffen Kaiser <skdovecot at
smail.inf.fh-brs.de> wrote:
>> On Tue, 9 Dec 2014, Stephen Lidie wrote:
>>>> On Dec 9, 2014, at 2:34 AM, Steffen Kaiser <skdovecot at
smail.inf.fh-brs.de> wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 8 Dec 2014, Stephen Lidie wrote:
>> For me this is working, too:
>>
>> doveadm -o mail_location=maildir:/home/user2/Maildir mailbox status \
>> -u user1 all INBOX
>
> Eureka!! The magic incantation snippet I was seeking :) I had tried,
variously, placing this simple string:
>
> 
"mail_location=mdbox:/home/RESTORE/homeb/userName/mail:INDEX=/home/RESTORE/var/dovecot/index/userName"
> So, where exactly did I fail to find -o documented?
http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Tools/Doveadm
- -o is a global option.

Dovecot v2.2.15: man doveadm
/-o<ENTER>
:-)

man doveadm|egrep -i '\-o'
        -o setting=value
               ple settings, the -o option may be specified multiple times.

However, I always wonder about the quoting [different shells behave 
differently] and would use:

man doveadm|egrep -i -- -o

==
Actually, I remember a post of Timo each time such question comes up. And 
this time I dug it up in the man pages.

- -- 
Steffen Kaiser
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> On Dec 10, 2014, at 1:42 AM, Steffen Kaiser <skdovecot at
smail.inf.fh-brs.de> wrote:
> 
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On Tue, 9 Dec 2014, Stephen Lidie wrote:
>>> On Dec 9, 2014, at 11:00 AM, Steffen Kaiser <skdovecot at
smail.inf.fh-brs.de> wrote:
>>> On Tue, 9 Dec 2014, Stephen Lidie wrote:
>>>>> On Dec 9, 2014, at 2:34 AM, Steffen Kaiser <skdovecot at
smail.inf.fh-brs.de> wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, 8 Dec 2014, Stephen Lidie wrote:
> 
>>> For me this is working, too:
>>> 
>>> doveadm -o mail_location=maildir:/home/user2/Maildir mailbox status
\
>>> -u user1 all INBOX
>> 
>> Eureka!! The magic incantation snippet I was seeking :) I had tried,
variously, placing this simple string:
>> 
>> 
"mail_location=mdbox:/home/RESTORE/homeb/userName/mail:INDEX=/home/RESTORE/var/dovecot/index/userName"
> 
>> So, where exactly did I fail to find -o documented?
> 
> http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Tools/Doveadm
> - -o is a global option.
> 
> Dovecot v2.2.15: man doveadm
> /-o<ENTER>
> :-)
> 
> man doveadm|egrep -i '\-o'
>       -o setting=value
>              ple settings, the -o option may be specified multiple times.
> 
> However, I always wonder about the quoting [different shells behave
differently] and would use:
> 
> man doveadm|egrep -i -- -o
The reason I did not see -o is because that option is NOT documented in the man
pages for my dovecot installation, for whatever reason!  Either of our egreps
would have found it if only it had been there :(

[root]# man doveadm|egrep -i '\-v'
       -v     Enables verbosity, including progress counter.
[root]# man doveadm|egrep -i '\-o'
[root]# man doveadm|egrep -i -- -o
[root]# man doveadm|egrep -i -- -v
       -v     Enables verbosity, including progress counter.
[root]# 

FWIW this is CentOS 7 with dovecot installed from an RPM:

[root]# yum list dovecot
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, langpacks, versionlock
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * base: linux.cc.lehigh.edu
 * epel: mirror.umd.edu
 * extras: mirror.es.its.nyu.edu
 * updates: mirrors.advancedhosters.com
Installed Packages
dovecot.x86_64        1:2.2.10-4.el7_0.1       @updates


thx/stv