From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Mar 14 23:39:27 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F29AC16A465 for ; Tue, 14 Mar 2006 23:39:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@meijome.net) Received: from sigma.octantis.com.au (ns2.octantis.com.au [207.44.189.124]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8AEA743D48 for ; Tue, 14 Mar 2006 23:39:26 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from freebsd@meijome.net) Received: (qmail 20975 invoked from network); 15 Mar 2006 10:39:26 +1100 Received: from andromeda.lef.com.au (HELO localhost) (210.8.93.2) by hospitalitydirectory.com.au with (DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA encrypted) SMTP; 15 Mar 2006 10:39:25 +1100 Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 10:39:19 +1100 From: Norberto Meijome To: Mike Jeays Message-ID: <20060315103919.6fe45695@localhost> In-Reply-To: <1142264327.2093.100.camel@chaucer.jeays.ca> References: <44152AD0.2070803@yourdot-mail.com> <441571F8.7090702@mac.com> <810a540e0603130559l62418490waea54a221f0f1801@mail.gmail.com> <44157D0E.4090104@mac.com> <810a540e0603130624r1ff51928m49826c9c12886937@mail.gmail.com> <4415817A.1080604@mac.com> <1142264327.2093.100.camel@chaucer.jeays.ca> X-Mailer: Sylpheed-Claws 2.0.0 (GTK+ 2.8.12; i386-portbld-freebsd6.1) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: mail backup solution? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 23:39:27 -0000 On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 10:38:47 -0500 Mike Jeays wrote: re. server side backup, a) if you can't have shell access to the box, rsync is kind of out of the question b) If your mail is hosted alongside your website, which is managed by one of the many control panels (cpanel, plesk, ensim), you should be able to generate a backup via the control panel interface. YMMV c) Do a backup from your local copy (after doing a download all msgs, which should still leave the mails in the server) - see below for how I do it d) Perl + some IMAP module to download each email and back it up? I dont see how this would be any better than c) really. > > Using Evolution, I made a tar backup of the .evolution directory, and > copied it to another machine. It came nowhere close to working > properly, maybe your local copy of emails (aka imapcache) is located elsewhere?) > and was about as annoying to work with as Outlook those that try to imitate a product will probably suffer some of the same issues, imho >. It > behaved just like a proprietary product with mysterious file formats, > even though the mailbox files themselves seem to be clean mboxes. It > must keep configuration data hidden somewhere else. I am pretty well > fed up with the product, and may switch to Thunderbird. interestingly enough, I recently switched from Thunderbird to sylpheed-claws. I know it's probably not so active, but it seems a lot more powerful, and it supports MH (working on getting the Maildir plugin to compile properly). It (sylpheed-claws) reminds me of good old XFMail, which I had used for a long while before Thunderb. FWIW, I have 9 email accounts (a few with different identities). Work related email is from an Exchange server - I tried Evolution + its exchange plugin and it just wouldnt work, so I moved on. Anyway, Work's IMAP cache is a symlink to a subdir in my GELI disk (this is a laptop after all). Work's local copies are also in the GELI disk. For backing up on the client side, I simply rsync to another box my ~/.sylpheed-claws, my GELI md device and the tar ball of the local copy my non-work emails (faster than transferring thousands of individual mails - MH format...). This is part of my laptop backup script (could be using dump, but i only need a small portion of the filesystem... setting nodump in most of the box is rather silly) > Or have I failed to understand something? maybe u should start by reading the config file and following through with each path mentioned,etc... it worked for me (tm) for Thunderbird, (FFox) and sylpheed good luck, Beto