imapsync/FAQ.d/FAQ.Exchange.txt

#!/bin/cat
$Id: FAQ.Exchange.txt,v 1.14 2015/11/30 16:12:18 gilles Exp gilles $

=======================================================================
  Imapsync. Exchange 20xx and Office365 specific issues and solutions
=======================================================================

Questions anwswered in this FAQ are:

Q. Can I use imapsync to transfer from or to Exchange or Office365 accounts?

Q. How to sync from XXX to Exchange 2010/2013 or Office365

Q. For Office365 I have double and triple checked the username and 
   password spelling but I still get a "LOGIN failed". Any clue?

Q. Exchange fails with "User is authenticated but not connected".

Q. From XXX to Exchange 2013 or Office365, read receipts are all
   resent again after a sync. Even for old messages. How can I fix that?

Q. From XXX to Exchange 2010/2013 or Office365 I get this error message
   sometimes: "BAD Command Argument Error 11". What does it mean?

Q. From XXX to Exchange 2010 or 2013 or Office365 the flag Flagged does 
   not seem to be well synced. What can I do?

Q. Exchange and Office365 have throttle mechanisms to limit any huge 
   usage. Sometimes imapsync transfers are too stressful for servers. 
   How to deal with that?

Q. How to migrate from or to Exchange 2007/2010 with an 
   admin/authuser account?

Q. How to migrate from or to Office 365 with an admin/authuser account?

Q. How to migrate from or to Exchange 2003 with an admin/authuser 
   account?

Q. Couldn't create folder [trash] "Mailbox already exists".

Q. Migrating to Exchange 201O, messages get date of the transfer,
   this is bad for sorting and listing. What can I do?

Q. How to sync from any to Exchange2007?

Q. How to sync from Microsoft Exchange 2000 IMAP4rev1 server?

=======================================================================
Q. Can I use imapsync to transfer from or to Exchange or Office365 accounts?

R. Yes. But IMAP access to a Exchange or Office365 account is not always 
   allowed by default so it has to be allowed in the server configuration 
   part:

=======================================================================
Q. How to sync from XXX to Exchange 2010/2013 or Office365

R. Here is a command line resume that solves most encountered issues when 
   migrating to Exchange or Office365. To understand or change the
   details you have to read next Q/R sections.


On Windows:

  imapsync.exe ... ^
    --maxsize 10000000 ^
    --maxlinelength 9900 ^
    --maxmessagespersecond 4 ^
    --regexflag "s/\\Flagged//g" ^
    --disarmreadreceipts ^
    --regexmess "s,(.{9900}),$1\r\n,g"

  On Unix
  imapsync ... --regexmess 's,(.{9900}),$1\r\n,g'


On Unix:

  imapsync ... \
    --maxsize 10000000 \
    --maxlinelength 9900 \
    --maxmessagespersecond 4 \
    --regexflag 's/\\Flagged//g' \
    --disarmreadreceipts \
    --maxlinelengthcmd 'reformime -r7' 
    
On Linux, to get the "reformime" command, install the "maildrop" package.
In case you don't have it you can use 
  --regexmess 's,(.{9900}),$1\r\n,g'
instead of --maxlinelengthcmd 'reformime -r7' 

On Windows, no "reformime" is available so messages with too long line length
can be synced to Exchange or Office365 by inserting a CRLF every 9900
characters on long lines, using --regexmess "s,(.{9900}),$1\r\n,g"

=======================================================================
Q. For Office365 I have double and triple checked the username and 
   password spelling but I still get a "LOGIN failed". Any clue?

R1. Triple check the hostname then. Try all of these:
 * imap-mail.outlook.com
 * imap.outlook.com
 * outlook.office365.com

R2. Also triple check a license is assigned to that account 
    in Office365.

R3. Try with a classic email client like Thunderbird and the same
    parameters.   

=======================================================================
Q. Exchange fails with "User is authenticated but not connected".

R. "The message “User is authenticated but not connected” is due to a 
   bug in the Exchange server's IMAP implementation. If the client 
   presents a valid user name but an invalid password, the server 
   accepts the login, but subsequent commands fail with the 
   aforementioned error message." Source:
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/164823/user-is-authenticated-but-not-connected-after-changing-my-exchange-password
Thanks to James Abbottsmith for this link and explanation at
https://github.com/imapsync/imapsync/issues/32#issuecomment-153561647

=======================================================================
Q. From XXX to Exchange 2013 or Office365, read receipts are all
   resent again after a sync. Even for old messages. How can I fix that?

R. imapsync can remove the header containing this read receipt request.

On Unix or Windows use:

  imapsync ... --disarmreadreceipts

Since read receipts should be sent for unseen messages that will go 
to a seen state after the migration, you could be strict and apply 
the regex only to seen messages. 
Selecting seen message can be done with:

  imapsync ... --search1 "SEEN" --disarmreadreceipts

Of course a second run has to be run without the --disarmreadreceipts
for unseen messages:

  imapsync ... --search1 "UNSEEN" 

If fact --disarmreadreceipts is just an option equivalent to:

  --regexmess 's{\A(.*?(?! ^$))^Disposition-Notification-To:(.*?)$}{$1X-Disposition-Notification-To:$2}igxms' 

That regex changes the header Disposition-Notification-To. It prefixes
it with an X- so that it becomes inactive.
Disposition-Notification-To: blabla
becomes
X-Disposition-Notification-To: blabla

Thanks to David Karnowski for pointing and solving this issue.

=======================================================================
Q. From XXX to Exchange 2010/2013 or Office365 I get this error message
   sometimes: "BAD Command Argument Error 11". What does it mean?

R. This error message comes from Exchange IMAP server when it 
   encounters any problem. Most of the time it is one of the following:

  * Some messages are bigger than the size limit. 10 MB by default
    on Exchange. It can be upped by configuration for Exchange.
    If you can't configure this limit then use option
    --maxsize 10000000 for 10 MB, change it if needed) to tell
    imapsync to skip those messages.
    This value is 25 MB by default for Office365 --maxsize 25000000

  imapsync ... --maxsize 10000000 # 10 MB for Exchange

  imapsync ... --maxsize 25000000 # 25 MB for Office365
  

  * Quota reached. The whole account is full.
    It can be upped by configuration.

  * Some messages have some lines too long. Use option --maxlinelength
    to skip messages whose max line length is over a number of bytes.
    --maxlinelength 1000 is a RFC2822 must but most server support
    higher values. Exchange supports 9900:

  imapsync ... --maxlinelength 9900 

  In case you prefer fixing messages with long lines the hard way,
  instead of skipping them with --maxlinelength 9900, just use:

  On Windows
  imapsync ... --regexmess "s,(.{9900}),$1\r\n,g"

  On Unix
  imapsync ... --regexmess 's,(.{9900}),$1\r\n,g'
  
Have also in mind that Exchange closes the connection after 10 errors
encountered so you might also see "BYE Connection closed" errors from
Exchange, which means Exchange leaves the session and say goodbye,
come back later. Rerun a sync then.

=======================================================================
Q. From XXX to Exchange 2010 or 2013 or Office365 the flag Flagged does 
   not seem to be well synced. What can I do?

R. Use the following trick. Run imapsync twice, one with --regexflag
   and one without, like this:

1) imapsync ... --regexflag "s/\\Flagged//g"
2) imapsync ...

You can add --debugflags if you want to see what imapsync gets and 
does in details with flags.

The magic of this trick is on ignoring the \Flagged flag on the first 
sync and setting it on the second sync, with STORE instead of APPEND.
This Exchange bug seems that Exchange gets and sets well the Flagged 
flag with APPEND in IMAP but then it forgets it with other protocols;
With STORE it sets and gets the "\Flagged" flag everywhere.

Thanks to Dave Murray and Simon Savva for reporting and solving 
this issue.

======================================================================
Q. Exchange and Office365 have throttle mechanisms to limit any huge 
   usage. Sometimes imapsync transfers are too stressful for servers. 
   How to deal with that?

R. It looks like limiting 4 messages per second is enough to never 
   reach any throttle limit.

  imapsync ... --maxmessagespersecond 4

======================================================================
Q. How to migrate from or to Exchange 2007/2010 with an 
   admin/authuser account?
   
R. The tricks comes from Michele Marcionelli and Benjamin Priestman:

This doesn't work:
  imapsync ... --user2 user2 --authuser2 admin2 --password2 adminpassword2 ...

This might works:
  imapsync ... --user2 "domain\admin2\user2" --password2 adminpassword2 ...
or 
  imapsync ... --user2 "admin2@domain\user2" --password2 adminpassword2 ...

where "domain" is set be the user's UPN in Active Directory
or the NETBIOS or DNS name of the domain.

The exact format might vary depending on local configuration and you
should experiment with the different formats.

PLAIN authentication is the only way to go with --authuser1 for now.
So don't use --authmech1 SOMETHING with --authuser1 admin_user,
it will not work.
Same behavior with the --authuser2 option.

A little note from Michael Scherer. 
The previous workaround in the FAQ seems to be obsolete.
I can confirm that

  imapsync ... --host2 exchange_server \
               --authuser2 admin@domain --user2 user_alias

is working without any glitches, running Exchange 2010 SP2 here.
Explanation, Exchange knows a) about a username 
and b) about a mailNickname which can be different to the username. 
As it seems you need to use the mailNickname (e.g. alias) defined 
for user2, not the username itself.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2004/03/31/105275.aspx


A little note from John Becker.
After you pointed out that I had issues with authorization, I realized that
as an admin user I don't have all the rights on the mailboxes.
So I added myself to the user mailbox with full rights.
I also changed the login type on the Exchange CAS to type 1, plain text.
The command that I used for imapsync is:
   imapsync ... ^
       --host2 exchange-server ^
       --user2 "windows-domain\admin-user\aaaa" ^
       --password2 admin-password ...




======================================================================
Q. How to migrate from or to Office 365 with an admin/authuser account?

Note from Yago Torres Fernandez:
(a working command using admin/authuser on host2 Office 365)

  imapsync ... --authuser2 user_admin@domain.com --user2 user_to_be_migrated@domain.com  ^
               --password2 XXXX --ssl2 --exclude "Shared Folders"     ^
               --regextrans2 "s#Trash$#Papelera#"  --regextrans2 "s#^Deleted Items$#Papelera#"

but previous in Office365 you must do something like that, using powershell:

  Add-MailboxPermission -identity user_to_be_migrated@domain.com -user user_admin@domain.com -accessrights fullaccess -inheritancetype all

PLAIN authentication is the only way to go with --authuser1 for now.
So don't use --authmech1 SOMETHING with --authuser1 admin_user,
it will not work.
Same behavior with the --authuser2 option.

See also:
http://www.linux-france.org/prj/imapsync_list/msg02203.html



======================================================================
Q. How to migrate from or to Exchange 2003 with an admin/authuser 
   account?

R. Thomas Edgar wrote the following

In case you can glean something from this snippet which allowed us 
to migrate from Exchange 2003 t0 Cyrus Imap 2.4 (you would reverse 
the flow to go the other way):

  imapsync --dry --host1 ExchangeServer.mycompany.com \
    --user1 Some.User@mycompany.com --authuser1 ExchangeAdminAccount \
    --proxyauth1 --password1 '$pass_with_dollars$' \
    --host2 cyrusimapbackend.mycompany.com \
    --user2 SameOrDiffererentUser@mycompany.com \
    --authuser2 CyrusAdminAccount --password2 CyrusAdminPassword

We also needed to:

- Ensure the Exchange Admin Acct had IMAP4 enabled in it's 
  profile (it initially didn't!)
- Ensure the Some.User Exchange Acct had IMAP4 enabled 
  in it's profile (it initially didn't!)
- Add the CyrusAdminAccount to admins line in /etc/imapd.conf
- Give CyrusAdminAccount lrswipkxtecda to the Cyrus Imap account 
  being migrated to (- or in your case, from)

In case you are not aware:

- It will prompt for a password if you don't supply it
- the domain part of the fully-qualified email could be 
  omitted in our case
- Use --debugimap when testing initial connectivity, if necessary



=======================================================================
Q. Couldn't create folder [trash] "Mailbox already exists".

R. Some servers take care about character case in folder names, 
   some servers do not, like Exchange. Since non-respecting case 
   can merge two different folders into one then imapsync respects case. 

   For example, if a host1 server has a folder name called "trash"
   and the host2 server already has a folder "Trash" or "TRASH"
   then imapsync will try to create the folder "trash" on host2,
   because trash and Trash are different strings. But if host2
   does not respect character case it will consider folder "trash"
   already exists and will say it, that's the error message 
   reported by imapsync: "Mailbox already exists", message coming 
   from the server.

   The folder creation fails but messages are well transferred in
   so take a look at this warning, understand why it happens
   and it should be fine most of the time.

   To avoid this warning use --regextrans2 to map the folder names

   imapsync ...  --regextrans2 "s/^trash$/Trash/"

   If there are two folders Trash and trash on host1 then both
   will be merge into only one Trash folder on host2. 
   In case option --delete2 is used the regextans2 above becomes
   mandatory, otherwise imapsync will sync messages from the
   first Trash and then delete them when syncing trash.

   In order to avoid merging folders that are considered different 
   on host1 but the same on destination host2 because of case 
   sensitivities and insensitivities, use  --nomixfolders

======================================================================
Q. Migrating to Exchange 201O, messages get date of the transfer,
   this is bad for sorting and listing. What can I do?

R1. Be sure to have at least Exchange 2010 SP2 Rollup 5
http://www.tribalchicken.com.au/15-technical/29-imapsync-exchange2010

R2. See also the Outlook side (thanks to Martin Hochreiter for this solution)
http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/archivenotworking.htm
by changing Archive to sent/receive date

It's often shorter to change one server than thousands clients
so R1 might be easier to do.

======================================================================
Q. How to sync from any to Exchange2007?

Several problems:
- Big messages: increase the "send- and receive-connector" 
  in exchange2007 to 40 MB.

R. 2 solutions

R1. With imapsync (only partial success)
--skipheader 'Received' \
--regexmess 's{\A(.*?(?!^$))^Date:(.*?)$}{$1Date:$2\nReceived: From; $2}gxms'
Any user having time to spend to debug Exchange2007 with imapsync
is welcome.

R2. Other solution
Two users succeeded by using "MS Transporter Suite" (which is closed
expensive non-free software).

======================================================================
Q. How to sync from Microsoft Exchange 2000 IMAP4rev1 server?

R. imapsync ...  --prefix1 "INBOX."


=======================================================================