Topic: BACKUP ALIASES !!!

[Christo Pretorius]

Hi Everyone,

On Friday 9 September 2000, I upgraded our company's
e-mail server from e-smith v3.1 to e-smith v4.0. I went
about it in the following way:

Backup v3.1 with e-smith manager
Insalled e-smith v4.0
Restored the backup I made.

The backup restored all the users, files in the ibays, mail
which haven't been downloaded, BUT it didn't restore any
of the aliases. This created MAJOR chaos for us, since we
don't have any printout of the aliases which exists and we
do have a lot of aliases.

I (and I'm sure the rest of the e-smith users out there)
would REALLY APPRECIATE it if you could extend the backup
and restore functionality to include aliases as well.

Thank you.
Christo Pretorius

[Gordon Rowell]

Christo Pretorius wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>
> On Friday 9 September 2000, I upgraded our company's e-mail
> server from e-smith v3.1 to e-smith v4.0. I went about it in
> the following way:
>
> Backup v3.1 with e-smith manager Insalled e-smith v4.0 Restored
> the backup I made.
>
> The backup restored all the users, files in the ibays, mail
> which haven't been downloaded, BUT it didn't restore any of the
> aliases. This created MAJOR chaos for us, since we don't have
> any printout of the aliases which exists and we do have a lot
> of aliases.
>
> I (and I'm sure the rest of the e-smith users out there) would
> REALLY APPRECIATE it if you could extend the backup and restore
> functionality to include aliases as well.

I agree - although please remember that aliases were not a supported
feature in either 3.1 or 4.0. They were user-contributed code (or were
manually created), and thus would not be part of the standard backup.

Gordon

[Henry]

If he had used the "upgrade" routine instead of "accept", would the information be retained?

Henry
Gordon Rowell wrote:

> Christo Pretorius wrote:
>
> > Hi Everyone, > > On Friday 9 September 2000, I
> upgraded our company's e-mail > server from e-smith v3.1 to
> e-smith v4.0. I went about it in > the following way: >
> > Backup v3.1 with e-smith manager Insalled e-smith v4.0
> Restored > the backup I made. > > The backup restored
> all the users, files in the ibays, mail > which haven't been
> downloaded, BUT it didn't restore any of the > aliases. This
> created MAJOR chaos for us, since we don't have > any
> printout of the aliases which exists and we do have a lot >
> of aliases. > > I (and I'm sure the rest of the e-smith
> users out there) would > REALLY APPRECIATE it if you could
> extend the backup and restore > functionality to include
> aliases as well.
>
> I agree - although please remember that aliases were not a
> supported feature in either 3.1 or 4.0. They were
> user-contributed code (or were manually created), and thus
> would not be part of the standard backup.
>
> Gordon

[Gordon Rowell]

Henry wrote:

> If he had used the "upgrade" routine instead of
> "accept", would the information be retained?
> [...]

Yes, although we had not put sufficient testing into the "upgrade"
option to make it a standard/supported/documented feature in
release 4.0 even though we had done it many times.

It is just the same as a normal RedHat upgrade - only the RPMs which
are listed will be upgraded. Anything outside that scope should be left
untouched.

Gordon

[Charlie Brady]

Christo Pretorius wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>
> On Friday 9 September 2000, I upgraded our company's e-mail
> server from e-smith v3.1 to e-smith v4.0. I went about it in
> the following way:
>
> Backup v3.1 with e-smith manager Insalled e-smith v4.0 Restored
> the backup I made.
>
> The backup restored all the users, files in the ibays, mail
> which haven't been downloaded, BUT it didn't restore any of the
> aliases. This created MAJOR chaos for us, since we don't have
> any printout of the aliases which exists and we do have a lot
> of aliases.
>
> I (and I'm sure the rest of the e-smith users out there) would
> REALLY APPRECIATE it if you could extend the backup and restore
> functionality to include aliases as well.

You should find your aliases database is still on your system, in the text file /home/e-smith/aliases. As Gordon says, there is an e-smith-aliases add-on package for e-smith 4.0, however it uses a different database format to the add-on for e-smith 3.x, so you can't use the existing aliases db directly. If you still wish to restore your original aliases, and you want help in converting the database, send me direct email and I'll see what I can do.

Regards

Charlie