how to restore a backup of single mailbox/folder with many subfolders without disturbing the other mailboxes

[Robert Noll]

Patrick Boutilier wrote:
> On 03/10/2010 06:52 AM, Robert Noll wrote:
>   
>> Hi all,
>>
>> i'd like to ask for advice on how to restore a backup of single mailbox
>> without disturbing the other mailboxes.
>>
>> Let's say user albert deleted an important folder with many (100+,
>> hierarchy) subfolders accidentally.
>> A complete system backup from yesterday evening is available,
>> but i don't want to restore the whole mail-system to the state of yesterday
>> because that would mean other users would loose anything that has
>> happened since then (sent, received etc).
>>
>> Following some info i found,
>> i created a new mailbox folder for the user in the mailsystem
>> (albert/myrestore)  ,
>> restored the files from the backup system in there,
>> and ran   reconstruct -r albert/myrestore
>>
>> while the mails directly inside the folder are now visible correctly,
>> the subfolders are not visible,
>> any idea how to solve this ?
>>     
>
> Try the -f option with reconstruct.
>
> -f     Examine the filesystem underneath mailbox, adding all directories 
> with a cyrus.header found there as new mailboxes.  Useful for
>                restoring mailboxes from backups.
>
>
>   
>> please advise =)
>> Regards,
>> Robert Noll
>> ----
>> Cyrus Home Page: http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/
>> Cyrus Wiki/FAQ: http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/twiki
>> List Archives/Info: http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/mailing-list.html
>>     
>
> ----
> Cyrus Home Page: http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/
> Cyrus Wiki/FAQ: http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/twiki
> List Archives/Info: http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/mailing-list.html
>   
Thanks for the reply,
using -f from within cyradm gave me an error

cyrus at mailserver$ cyradm localhost
... pw entry ...
localhost> reconstruct -f user/albert/myrestore 
                                                     
usage: reconstruct [-r] mailbox

but manually calling  /usr/sbin/cyrreconstruct -f user/albert/myrestore
said it has discovered the subfolders,
however they still do not show up in imap client,
even after running
reconstruct -f user/albert/myrestore from cyradm
again, logging out and back in, using a webmail instead of imapclient etc...
nothing helped =(

maybe old version ? cyradm : "version" says : v2.2.13-Debian-2.2.13-10 
2006/11/13 16:17:53
server is debian etch
dpkg --list | grep cyrus
ii  cyrus-admin-2.2                2.2.13-10                            
Cyrus mail system (administration tools)
ii  cyrus-common-2.2               2.2.13-10                            
Cyrus mail system (common files)
ii  cyrus-imapd-2.2                2.2.13-10                            
Cyrus mail system (IMAP support)
ii  libcyrus-imap-perl22           2.2.13-10                            
Interface to Cyrus imap client imclient libr

i'm a bit scared of updating cyrus however,
would be a problem to have a broken mailsystem for a few days

do you think it should work in my current version ?
am i using the cyrreconstruct or cyradm wrong ?

please advise
Regards,
Robert Noll