Restoring mail - using rsync

[misc]

Hi, I was wondering if someone could please help me with a problem. I have been doing backups of Scalix via rsync only, not using any backup script and I realize this is the incorrect way to back up Scalix. However, someone had lost their mail this morning and I needed to import it and was wondering if there is any way of doing this via rsync?

What I tried was to first find out which directory stores her mail by using omshowu -f 'the user'. Then I backed up that ~/user/g000038 dir and copied the one from the backup and restarted Scalix. I could telnet to the pop port and list the mails but most were unreadable, some were readable.

I figure that more mail is in the ~/data directory, so Scalix stores some in the ~/user and some in ~/data. I think what I need to do is actually rsync everything from the backup then try and it will probably be OK however also probably very damaging. I would need to create another server, install Scalix, rsync then test, but is there any other way I can get this user's mail box with just an rsync backup of Scalix?

[mikevl]

Hi

Rsync is normally used when you have a second server set up with Scalix and you rsync the data to the 2nd server.

If things go awry then you can start the backup server connect to it and retrieve a users messages.

Or

If your main server blows up then you can install the OS install Scalix and rsync the message store back. There is much more to the data store than just the messages. Think about how Scalix will find the messages once they are on the hard disk. Its not that simple

Mike

[misc]

Thanks for the reply.

OK if I can just install Scalix on another server then rsync the /var/opt/scalix from backup to somewhere else and it will work then I'll just do that, that will be the easiest way.

Unless that is going to cause problems...

[mikevl]

Hi

just remember to preserve permissions when you do the rsync

Mike

[misc]

Hi, thanks. I built a VM and rsync'd the whole backup to the newly created VM and I could then access all my mail.

Thanks again.