problem with restore

donkeyKICK

donkeyKICK

Verified User
Joined
Jul 24, 2007
Messages
387
I am having trouble with restore

I am trying to restore some users to a new server. a couple account did work, but most give me this:

Unable to read /etc/virtual/domain/passwd
Unable to open /etc/virtual/domain/passwd for reading.

Catch all is now set to :fail:
Click to expand...
 
Additional info. The problem only exists if I am restoring to an account that already exists. I was thinking it would simply update. It doesn't. It fails. If I delete the user first then run the restore it works fine. That might have been why some worked and some didn't. I first tried a few users, seemed to work well so I decided to just do a bunch of them all at once. When I had the problem I started doing one at a time and noticed the pattern.
 
Do you have any way of knowing the owneship and permission values of the files before the restore?

Jeff
 
I can bring the old server back up (briefly) in the middle of the night if it will help others. What files specifically do you want me to check? Just /etc/virtual/domain/passwd?
 
The question frome me above is just a stab in the dark. I'd say if you still need the files copy them over manually, maintaining the proper ownership and permissions (based on what you see on other working users. I know this doesn't solve the problem but it's the quick way if you can only bring the server up for a few minutes. The problem may of course never come up again.

And if we're lucky, it will come up for me; I've got enough IP#s that I can leave old servers up untill new ones' are completely working :).

Jeff
 
How do you do that? I mean how do you leave the old ones up while working on the new ones. If I leave the old one up, and start a transfer any mail received during that time might be lost.
 
After everything has propagated to the new IP# (I use a 600 TTL but always wait at least an hour), so by then no email should be received at the old server anymore, I backup & restore email only again. This means a delay of some mail for about an hour, and sometimes mail is duplicated if it's been received by POP3 through the new server and is then copied over again from the old server, but I've never had any reports (or concerns) over any email lost.

That's my experience; you should try it yourself before depending on it.

(Note; be sure all services are pointed to the correct new IP#s by DNS before doing this, then wait the hour.)

Jeff
 
If you restore email that way, would it not clear out all the email delivered to the new server? If so, what do you do about emails delivered to the new server in that 1 hour?
 
I don't think so; I've never gotten complaints on this procedure; I've always presumed that restores overwrite email. Hopefully John will reply, and change the behavior if necessary.

Jeff
 
The email accounts, and email data are merged.
The accounts are merged into the passwd file, and the mail data is simply tar extracted into the same folder.. so whatever is there (assuming it isn't in the tar.gz) will remain there. Anything that matches what's in the tar.gz will simply be overwritten, which wouldn't change anything (as it would likely be the exact same message)

John
 
John, do you also delete the index files? If not you should, so any new emails will become visible; if someone logs in and the index files aren't there Dovecot will rebuiild the indexes, but if they are there, but lack information on certain emails, Dovecot will only show the ones in the index file.

Jeff
 
Yes, the extraction overwrites the index files.
However, all I can say is that dovecot is smart and it's never missed a beat.
I can't say we've had any reported issues relating to this.

John
 
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