How to move mail data + db to external RAID volume

I assume* that rsync can make the two directories identical, so in the case you described the rsync command I will create should both copy the new files to the new location as well as delete the file(s) that no longer exists in the original location.



Copying (time taken from the last time I cloned the OS disk) is several hours
- There's roughly 70 GB of maildata
- The number of e-mails is ca. 400.000
- The number of users is ca. 250

I dont think that the server is performing as good as it should (it's being replaced with an intel-based server very soon).
I had to reconstruct the db yesterday (using mailbrf ;-)! and it took ca. 7 hours.
Today the mailque grew to ca. 300 mails for a long time (ca. 6 hours), another issue I need to debug, after working time ended (a coinsidence?) the mailque was empty again…




(*) I still need to test rsync, so far I have not used it, but from man rsync:
+--delete delete files that don't exist on sender+

Hmm - any ideas what tool to use in the real world then .-)

OK - I'll give it a shot then.

The time measurements I noted for the rebuild of the database, do they seem "fair" for a dual 1,33 GHz G4 w/ 1,5 GB RAM?

The load avg in top is low so I am guessing that the long time is due to the fairly large number of files that needs to be parsed to reconstruct the db…

After doing the above on my testserver (not the rsyncing part, just the move to external disk part) it was working OK.

BUT then I renamed /var/imap/ to /var/imap_old and the things stopped working.
After I undid the rename I still have problem, the problem is related to a socket. The error I get is:
…status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: couldn't connect to lmtpd: No such file or directory_ 421 4.3.0 deliver: couldn't connect to lmtpd_ )

I can see that the file /var/imap/socket/lmtp exists and that the timestamp indicates that the file is being recreated eg from a server reboot (and probably also on a service stop+start

server:~ admin$ ls -l /var/imap/socket/lmtp
srwxrwxrwx 1 root mail 0 Feb 15 15:35 /var/imap/socket/lmtp

I think I did the renaming while the mailservice was running (since I thought that the files were not used) that might mean something.


I tried mailbfr -o hoping that it might have been a permission problem, but it was'nt so that did'nt help.

I then hoped that the socket would be recreated from a reboot, this is also not the case.

I don't know a lot about sockets, and have a problem getting the service back in working order.

I can see that the mails are now piling up in the queue, using postqueue -p.
Here I am getting the same error:

(temporary failure. Command output: couldn't connect to lmtpd: No such file or directory_ 421 4.3.0 deliver: couldn't connect to lmtpd_)

I did step 1-6 as described earlier and hence did not rename the database while running (knowing that WILL cause problems).

I am currently able to both read my previously received mail (as well as send new mail) so the database is OK it seems


AFTER all was changed and was working I thought I'd make sure nothing was being used from the old location and THEN I found out there is something still being used
(/var/imap/socket/lmtp).

Do you still think it's necessary to do a reconstruct - I really think that something else must be wrong!

Correct I changed the paths in imapd.conf
FROM:
configdirectory: /var/imap
partition-default: /var/spool/imap

TO:
configdirectory: /Volumes/Data/Mail/imap
partition-default: /Volumes/Data/Mail/spool/imap


I try to teach myself to be able to do as much server-maintenance as possible via CLI - a real benefit when you're not even able to contact the server via Server Admin (due to other problems 🙂


😉

OK - Heres my complete guide (what I googled for but did not find 😉


How to move the mailstorage to another volume (/Volumes/Data)
Based upon Mac OS X Server 10.4.11

1. Stop mailserver
sudo serveradmin stop mail




2. Create backup with mailbfr ( http://osx.topicdesk.com/content/view/41/41/)
sudo /usr/sbin/mailbfr -b /Volumes/Data/Backups/mailbfrBackups --mode incremental




3. Create the new location
mkdir -p /Volumes/Data/Mail/spool/imap
mkdir -p /Volumes/Data/Mail/imap




4. Copy the data to the new location
sudo cp -Rpv /var/spool/imap/ /Volumes/Data/Mail/spool/imap/
sudo cp -Rpv /var/imap/ /Volumes/Data/Mail/imap/




5. Backup relevant configuration files
sudo cp /etc/imapd.conf /etc/imapd.conf_TvE-2008.02.15
sudo cp /etc/cyrus.conf /etc/cyrus.conf_TvE-2008.02.15
sudo cp /etc/postfix/main.cf /etc/postfix/main.cf_TvE-2008.02.15




6. Change the pointer to the new location in /etc/imapd.conf
configdirectory: /Volumes/Data/Mail/imap
partition-default: /Volumes/Data/Mail/spool/imap




7 Change the pointer to the new location in /etc/cyrus.conf
lmtpunix cmd="lmtpd" listen="/Volumes/Data/Mail/imap/socket/lmtp" prefork=0
# notify cmd="notifyd" listen="/Volumes/Data/Mail/imap/socket/notify" proto="udp" prefork=1




8. Change the pointer to the new location in /etc/postfix/main.cf
virtual_transport = lmtp:unix:/Volumes/Data/Mail/imap/socket/lmtp




9. Rename old mail dirs to make sure they're not used
- Optional step - the content should be erased to free up space and avoid confusion)!
sudo mv /var/imap/ /var/imap_old-TvE-2008.02.15
sudo mv /var/spool/imap/ /var/spool/imap_old-TvE-2008.02.15




10. Start mailserver
sudo serveradmin start mail




One should now also create fresh backup using mailbfr, so a restore will restore to a point in time AFTER all the above changes have been done.





- Thomas von Eyben (Credits to pterobyte/ http://topicdesk.com/ !)

Message was edited by: Thomas von Eyben