dovecot - Jan 2022 - Migrate mail_location

> On 03/01/2022 10:51 hello at reox.at wrote:
> 
>  
> Hi!
> 
> I have a dovecot installation, with the following configuration:
> mail_home = /var/vmail/%d/%n
> mail_location = maildir:~
> 
> I would like to migrate the mail_location to maildir:~/mail, to get 
> around the issues described in the documentation.
> But I can not really find a good way to do that.
> I played around with doveadm sync/backup, but I can only copy everything 
> into a new location (i.e. doveadm sync maildir:~/mail), but this does 
> not really untangle the mail_home and location.
> My other idea was to migrate the maildir manually, i.e. move the maildir 
> related folders and files (new, cur, tmp, all folders starting with a 
> dot and containing itself {new,cur,tmp}, dovecot.* files, subscriptions 
> file) into the ~/mail folder, but I'm not sure if this is a safe
method.
> 
> Is there any safe method to do this using dovecot tools? If the only way 
> is a offline migration, I'm fine with that.
> 
> Best,
> Sebastian
Hi!

Since you're using maildir, you can just stop dovecot, move the files, and
start dovecot.

In particular, you should **not** move .dovecot.sieve directory, or
dovecot-attributes (if you have used mail_attribute_dict).

It's a good idea to do testing.

Aki

On 05.01.2022 09:34, Aki Tuomi wrote:
> 
>> On 03/01/2022 10:51 hello at reox.at wrote:
>>
>>   
>> Hi!
>>
>> I have a dovecot installation, with the following configuration:
>> mail_home = /var/vmail/%d/%n
>> mail_location = maildir:~
>>
>> I would like to migrate the mail_location to maildir:~/mail, to get
>> around the issues described in the documentation.
>> But I can not really find a good way to do that.
>> I played around with doveadm sync/backup, but I can only copy
everything
>> into a new location (i.e. doveadm sync maildir:~/mail), but this does
>> not really untangle the mail_home and location.
>> My other idea was to migrate the maildir manually, i.e. move the
maildir
>> related folders and files (new, cur, tmp, all folders starting with a
>> dot and containing itself {new,cur,tmp}, dovecot.* files, subscriptions
>> file) into the ~/mail folder, but I'm not sure if this is a safe
method.
>>
>> Is there any safe method to do this using dovecot tools? If the only
way
>> is a offline migration, I'm fine with that.
>>
>> Best,
>> Sebastian
> 
> Hi!
> 
> Since you're using maildir, you can just stop dovecot, move the files,
and start dovecot.
> 
> In particular, you should **not** move .dovecot.sieve directory, or
dovecot-attributes (if you have used mail_attribute_dict).
> 
> It's a good idea to do testing.
> 
> Aki
Hi!
Thanks for the answer! Just to confirm: that means the only files which 
will stay in mail_home are all sieve related files and folders, 
dovecot-attributes (I do not use this currently though) and the 
xapian-indexes folder (I use fts-xapian)? Thus the files 
dovecot{.index,.index.cache,.index.log,.index.thread,-keywords,.list.index,.mailbox.log,-uidlist,-uidvalidity,-uidvalidity.*}
all belong to the maildir?
For most of them I'm pretty sure they belong to the maildir (if not 
otherwise configured).
Must I run some re-indexing command after migration, for example also 
for the FTS?

I'll test that on a test server before but it is also good to know what 
files belong where.

Sebastian