Topic: Importing MBOX mail archives into Maildir...

[NomadOfNorad]

Okay, I seem to have SME set up the way I need it, have installed the SME Fetchmail add-on to my machine, and am ready to make SME my general IMAP server...

Now, my next step is to move more than a decades worth of MBox-format mail archives, ones that came from the creaky old machine that has served as my email server all that time, over onto the SME mailserver and into Maildir format.

Can someone recommend the best, easiest, and most reliable way to do it?  Should I do it from the shell on the SME box, with some specialised converter routine, or should I look for a conversion process that operates by way of Thunderbird?  Bear in mind, I intend to make the SME machine my permanant mail repository, accessed via IMAP.

[NomadOfNorad]

Well, it looks like http://batleth.sapienti-sat.org/projects/mb2md/ is probably my best bet, but it states at one point

Run this as the user of the mailboxes, not as root.

but when I try to log in as one of the users I've created the mailboxes for, from the logon: prompt, I get a few lines of text that are only on screen for the blink of an eye (not near long enough for me to read them), and then I get an otherwise blank screen with just a new logon: prompt...

Anyone else have experience with the above script?

Do I need to create the users independantly, from bash, to correspond to the mailbox-names, or does SME create the users automatically for me when you create the mailbox from the Web-intrface?

[girkers]

I don't know about that script, but when you create a user through the server manager, an email account is automatically created with respective aliases (I can't spell psydenums).

[NomadOfNorad]

Well, obviously SME creates the mailboxes, with aliases... I know that much from having created a few mailboxes from within the server manager (web-interface).  What I'm wondering is:  Does it also create the full blown user account, where one can go to the machine itself, type in that username and password at the (pure text) logon prompt, and get to the shell?  I've tried it, but it just pops me right back out to the logon prompt.

[beakersloco]

No it doesnt create a user with root level access. I dont think thier is a way to give a user root lever access. Now I do remember seeing a contrib out thier that will allow you to  delegate more rights to other users on the server and be able to log in to the server-manager.  


http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php/Install%20a%20revised%20user-manager%20panel%20that%20allows%20user%20and%20admin%20tasks%20to%20be%20delegated

[NomadOfNorad]

Hmmmm...  I don't really think "give them root level access" is the issue here.  I suspect what the issue here is -- and, mind you, this is just a guess -- that the author(s) of the script anticipate needing to make one or more subdirectories within the user's maildir, and on some systems may even need to make the original maildir itself... and, well...

See, if you run the script while logged in as root, or as some other user than the one whos mailbox the mail is intended for, then those newly-created dirs will be owned by root, or that other user, rather than by the intended user of that maildir. which might cause complications when that user later tries to access those mails.  At that, the individual mail files might themselves wind up owned by root, instead of by the intended end-user...

It might be possible to chroot the dirs later, I suppose, but...

Anyway, that was one reason I was asking here for input from anyone that has already done this:  They might be able to advise me of any pitfalls they ran into, and what they did to work around them.  Or they might be able to tell me, "Don't worry about it, everything went perfectly peachy when I did it!"