Moving e-mail hosting...

MartMax

Another hosting question...

I have quite a few websites including an online store, now thinking of moving to a new and more reliable hosting. I have no problem moving the websites, I have all local copy of the sites and databases, so it's not an issue to upload those again to new server.

The biggie thing is moving e-mails... I never heard if this has been done on shared hosting... Users of one mail domain I look after are relying heavily to the e-mail services.. I have experienced moving my e-mail before (that's only one mailbox of my own)... What I did was download the e-mails using POP3 from former server to my Outlook, then upload to new server using IMAP by copying accross those mailbox in Outlook... Now I can't think of any way move multiple mailboxes.... which already storing hundred megabytes of e-mails...

Any opinion?

Mart

Dar

Had to do this recently actually, admittedly with a fairly small amount of email addresses. I just downloaded an email forwarding program, set up each email address individually and set it going. It grabbed all the emails on the old server and forwarded them onto the new one. The only major hassle is of course entering the details for each of the accounts you want forwarded.

Bit of a dirty solution, but hey it works .

misterq

If the new provider is a unix box, check out fetchmail. It can grab mail from a server and lob it into a local mailbox.

I use it all the time when migrating mailservers.

Sposs

easiest way is to set up all your e-mail accounts with your new provider first ,once thats done simply change the DNS of your domain to your new provider.
You will collect your mail from your old provider right up until the switch over ,and as you already have the accounts set-up on your new provider it should be a seamless switch over.

MartMax

thanks lads...

my concern is now... how exactly will i be collecting old mailbox contents to new server? the requirement is to retain all existing mailbox contents, fetchmail looks promising but can i run it on shared hosting?

mart

mneylon

You'd probably have to ask your new provider for assistance

Dar

Exactly how many email addresses are you talking about?

I used mail redirect to forward all old mail from our old mail server with oceanfree to our new hosting account.

This essentially duplicated the mail box preserving dates, headers, etc. The drawback being the unlicenced version will only do one account at a time.

MartMax

Wuhoo, just wanna share this.

I have successfully moved one of my account to a new hosting provider. All mailbox contents from previous provider are retained on the new server. What I did was simple:

1. Download all mail contents from previous hosting using FTP. It is a linux hosting, the mail folders can be seen in my root directory /mail/domain.com/username/. The file is inbox that you wanna download
   
2. Create a mail account on new hosting server, this will create same /mail/domain.com/username/ folder as it is using the similar linux configuration
   
3. Upload inbox to new server

There is no permission issue, so the above works perfectly fine.

I am now moving another account to the provider but get a different server. This is different now as this server does not keep mailbox in on file under /mail/domain.com/username/ folder but instead each e-mail is now stored as a file. Does anyone know what kind of e-mail system is that?

Mart

mneylon

mart_max wrote:

I am now moving another account to the provider but get a different server. This is different now as this server does not keep mailbox in on file under /mail/domain.com/username/ folder but instead each e-mail is now stored as a file. Does anyone know what kind of e-mail system is that?

Why don't you telnet to it and see what the smtp and pop banners say?

It might not help you that much though, as many MTAs offer you more than one storage option for mails

dahamsta

If the hosting is still on *nix, it's likely Maildir, but there are different types (for want of a better word) of Maildir. Odds on it's courier-imap, but you should ask your provider just in case. If it is, there are convertors out there, google using "convert mbox maildir". Or just ask them to move you to the other server.

Methinks you should look at a better migration path too, for futureproofing. I'd recommend running both accounts in parallel during transition at the very least.

adam

MartMax

I did the telnet and it say ESMTP EXIM 4.5.2 sthing... same with the other servet that uses mbox... but I think it must be maildir running on.. I have sent a request to move server... mbox is probably the safest choice... thanks guys..

mart

MartMax

just some updates...

i'm not gonna move server as the other servers will have cPanel upgraded soon. so likely those server will no longer use mbox. apparently coming cPanel upgrades on their servers will use maildir instead. no point moving anyway.

mart