Hi,

I had a mail server on postfix with mailboxes@/var/spool/mail.
Recently a new server was brought in to replace this server and unfortunately the replacer forgot to transfer the users,mail directories and files from the old server to the new server.They opted to create afresh all these in the new server but used the same setup - postfix with mailboxes@/var/spool/mail.
Mails have already accumulated in the new server while the old one was offline;I need to know how I would integrate the old mail boxes to the new mail boxes and have all in order and operating perfectly.
(I want the old and new mails to reflect in the new server & in the same mail box)
Combine:
oldserver#/var/spool/mail/userA to Newserver#/var/spool/mail/userA

and also user directories:
OldServer#/'userAdirectory'/mail to Newserver#/'userAdirectory'/mail

The main factor to consider here is that there are loads of new mails in the new server since replacement and I would not want to overwrite the new with the old files.

i,How would I do this?

ii,Is there a way one can 'export' mails from a system-user based mail system to database based mail system.I would like to have the mails on mysql and managed through postfixadmin preferably.My problem is how to get the system mailbox stored mails to the db.Would really value your inputs.

Thanks in advance.

See man cp especially the -i option
I don't know.

If the mailbox spools are mbox formats, they can be concatenated together. You must stop postfix and ensure no users are retrieving mail at the time you are perform the concatenation (i.e. no MUAs have the mbox's open).

Here is the basic procedure (I'll leave to you the transferring of old mbox spools from old machine to new):

( cat oldmbox ; echo ; cat newmbox ) > joinedmbox

This will concatenate the old and new mboxes with a blank line inbetween (which is used to separate mail messages in mbox format). You can then test the procedure with

mail -f joinedmbox

Once you have confirmed the mbox is correct, you can move the existing mail spool in /var/spool/mail/user to /var/spool/mail/user.prev and then move the joinedmbox to /var/spool/mail/user. Be sure the permissions are correct.

The same concept applies with user's mbox's in various ~/mail folders. Once you get the hang of it, you can script the operation, depending upon how many you have.

Make backups first before you destroy any data! This is why I concatenated data into a new mbox in the example above.

I don't have info re; importing mbox's into a DB.

Mr. C.,this might work the magic for me.
Will definitely try it and giv u feedback.

About exporting mails to db,I was wondering if there was a way to create a database structure from system based mailboxes and be able to to retain all mails in to the new db setup.
I might be asking too much but if there's a person who has ever worked out something keep me posted.

Thanks again.

Or you can simply use formail to repost the mail after the DB is up and running. I don't have a DB-based email system here, so am not up on that.

Thanks Mr. C.,I was able to join the Files with your illustration 8~)!
LQ Community...gud spirit so far!!!