How to migrate mail to a new server

[Kenneth Marshall]

On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 04:34:21PM +0100, Eric Luyten wrote:
> On Fri, February 19, 2010 4:13 pm, Patrick Boutilier wrote:
> > On 02/19/2010 11:03 AM, Marco van Putten wrote:
> >
> >> J. Roeleveld wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hi All,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I have been reading the thread about using "xfer" to migrate to a
> >>> different server or to use imapsync instead. Both methods appear to require
> >>> some additional work and I would prefer to simply copy the data across
> >>> instead of using synchronization tools on live servers. (It's not a
> >>> requirement to keep the email accessible during the transfer)
> >>>
> >>> I have around 21GB of mail to copy across and was wondering how best to
> >>> do this. The mail server can (and most likely will) be stopped during the
> >>> transfer.
> >>>
> >>> Will it be sufficient to simply copy the "/var/imap" and
> >>> "/var/spool/imap"
> >>> folders across? The contents of "/var/spool/imap" are all the emails and
> >>> the db-files and such appear to be in "/var/imap"
> >>
> >>
> >> I've done the copy method several times without loosing any mail.
> >> In all cases after stopping the mail services before the copy action.
> >> Don't know if its the best/preferred/nicest method but it works for me...
> >>
> >
> >
> > +1
> >
> >
> > I have always used rsync in the past. 21G of mail shouldn't take much
> > time to move.
> 
> 
> In August-September 2009 I rsync'd a 3.5 TB Cyrus mail store, 35 million msgs.
> 
> The final incremental rsync required a 10 hour (overnight) service halt.
> 
> 
> Eric.
> 

Yes, it is definitely worth setting up Cyrus replication for this
process. Then the new copy is kept virtually up to date until the
final switch which then will require minimal downtime.

Cheers,
Ken