FAQ How to change a userid

[Paul M Fleming]

Easier method.. Get UW imap-util tar and use imapxfer -- does it all for
you.. If you're a kerberos shop it even handles proxy authentication so
an admin doesn't need to know the user's password. 

John Wade wrote:
> 
> If anyone is interested, we have a perl script that does the following:
> 
> The script will:
> #1) obtain list of mailboxes under the old UI via direct IMAP calls
> #2) create the new mailboxes via direct IMAP calls
> #3) do the recursive copy of mail files from old UID to new UID
> #4) reconstruct new UID mailbox
> #5) get the seen file for the old UID and prep for the new UID
> #6) get the contents of all cyrus.header files for old & new UIDs into
> arrays
> #7) hula-hoop thru seen file stuff; do tricky search and replace
> #9) handle search and replace for old UID to new UID in <newUID>.sub file
> #10) move any sieve scripts to the new UID
> 
> I can't say it is a perfect implementation because it does not try to
> address items 2 or 3 below, but these are not used extensively in our
> environment.
> 
> If you would like a copy, email me directly and I will be happy to send it,
> 
> John Wade
> 
> Rob Siemborski wrote:
> 
> >On Mon, 30 Jun 2003, twk wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>>Then Why Cant I similarly  rename
> >>>     'user/username ----> user/newusername '
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Because you can't. It's an architectural limitation of Cyrus.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >This isn't true.  Its certainly possible, its just quite laborous to do
> >correctly.
> >
> >
> >
> >>Here is what we do :
> >>
> >>- Create a new account (new)
> >>- cp -r /imap/user/o/old/* /imap/user/n/new
> >>- reconstruct -r user.new
> >>- delete old account
> >>
> >>I wouldn't consider that particularly laborious.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Except you haven't renamed the user, you've just renamed the mailbox.
> >
> >To rename the user you need to also do the following:
> >
> >1. move the subscriptions, seen state & sieve scripts (ok, this isn't
> >hard)
> >2. change the ACLs on all the mailboxes so that the old username is
> >replaced by the new username (this is quite intensive to do on a large
> >mail store)
> >3. update the group memberships (since cyrus doesn't control its own
> >group memberships, this involves the use of an outside process somehow).
> >
> >There is an 'allowusermoves' option in 2.2 that does some of this, but (2)
> >and (3) just can't be done in any efficient way using the current scheme
> >(We have thought about using numberic uids for users, but that would be a
> >significant architechural shift).
> >
> >-Rob
> >
> >-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> >Rob Siemborski * Andrew Systems Group * Cyert Hall 207 * 412-268-7456
> >Research Systems Programmer * /usr/contributed Gatekeeper
> >
> >
> >
> >