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daks/dovecot-doveadm-sync.md

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Created May 22, 2023 11:34
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Sync (migrate) a Dovecot Email Account from One Dovecot Server to Another
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dovecot-doveadm-sync.md

Sync (migrate) a Dovecot Email Account from One Dovecot Server to Another

The man doveadm-sync pages are cryptic and not very well explained, as well they are missing quality real-world examples.

This gist aims to give some clarity and explanation.

Here is the command I got to successfully transfer (and sync backwards too) an email account from an old Dovecot email server to a new Dovecot email server:

To my knowledge, both servers must have a matching account already setup for this to work:

  • Old Dovcot server: email account user@emailaddress.com setup, used and populated with emails.
  • New Dovecot server: email account user@emailaddress.com also setup, possibly empty, awaiting email migration from old server.

YMMV - lemeknow

Hint: you have to create/use an ssh key-pair with ssh-keygen, transfer the contents of the ....pub key into the new mail server's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file before this can run.

!!! WARNING: MAKE A BACKUP OF ANYTHING YOU'RE NOT WILLING TO LOSE !!!

Command

This must be run on the server that contains the transferable account and email data (old server):

doveadm -Dv sync -u user@emailaddress.com ssh new.mail.server.com -i /path/to/.ssh/privatekeyfor_new.mail.server.com_rsa doveadm dsync-server -u users@emailaddress.com

Explanation

  • doveadm -Dv: run with verbose and progress indicator.
  • sync: sync both ways if email is on both servers (otherwise, just old to new).
  • -u user@emailaddress.com: sync this ONE email address (don't bork all emails in case something fails).
  • ssh new.mail.server.com -i /path/to/.ssh/privatekeyfor_new.mail.server.com_rsa: This will ssh into new server using the setup ssh-keygen private key file above (see hint above).
  • doveadm dsync-server -u users@emailaddress.com: (from my understanding) ssh runs this part of the command on the new remote dovecot server to get this whole thing working. This is where I spent most of my time experimenting. It would be great if the man doveadm-sync pages expanded better on this in simple details and included more examples.

I hope this saves someone time.

You're welcome.

—Maui

MIT license: This gist, and everything in it comes with absolutely no warranty!

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