imapsync/README

NAME
    imapsync - IMAP synchronization, copy or migration tool. Synchronize
    mailboxes between two imap servers. Good at IMAP migration.

    $Revision: 1.132 $

INSTALL
     imapsync works fine under any Unix OS.
     imapsync works fine under Windows 2000 (at least) and ActiveState's 5.8 Perl

     Get imapsync at
     http://www.linux-france.org/prj/imapsync/dist/

     You'll find a compressed tarball called imapsync-x.xx.tgz
     where x.xx is the version number. Untar the tarball where
     you want :

     tar xzvf  imapsync-x.xx.tgz

     Go into the directory imapsync-x.xx and read the INSTALL
     file.

     The freshmeat record is http://freshmeat.net/projects/imapsync/

SYNOPSIS
      imapsync [options]

      imapsync --help
      imapsync

      imapsync [--host1 server1]  [--port1 <num>]
               [--user1 <string>] [--passfile1 <string>]
               [--host2 server2]  [--port2 <num>]
               [--user2 <string>] [--passfile2 <string>]
               [--noauthmd5]
               [--folder <string> --folder <string> ...]
               [--include <regex>] [--exclude <regex>]
               [--prefix2 <string>] [--regextrans2 <regex>]
               [--sep1 <char>]
               [--sep2 <char>]
               [--justfolders] [--justconnect]
               [--syncinternaldates]
               [--buffersize  <int>]
               [--syncacls]
               [--regexmess <regex>] [--regexmess <regex>] 
               [--maxsize <int>]
               [--maxage <int>]
               [--skipheader <regex>]
               [--useheader <string>] [--useheader <string>]
               [--skipsize]
               [--delete] [--expunge]
               [--subscribed] [--subscribe]
               [--nofoldersizes]
               [--dry]
               [--debug] [--debugimap]
               [--timeout <int>] [--fast]
               [--version] [--help]
  
DESCRIPTION
    The command imapsync is a tool allowing incremental and recursive imap
    transfer from one mailbox to another.

    We sometimes need to transfer mailboxes from one imap server to another.
    This is called migration.

    imapsync is the adequate tool because it reduces the amount of data
    transfered by not transfering a given message if it is already on both
    sides. Same headers, same message size and the transfert is done only
    once. All flags are preserved, unread will stay unread, read will stay
    read, deleted will stay deleted. You can stop the transfert at any time
    and restart it later, imapsync is adapted to a bad connection.

    You can decide to delete the messages from the source mailbox after a
    successful transfert (it is a good feature when migrating). In that
    case, use the --delete option, and run imapsync again with the --expunge
    option.

    You can also just synchronize a mailbox A from another mailbox B in case
    you just want to keep a "live" copy of B in A.

OPTIONS
    Invoke: imapsync --help

HISTORY
    I wrote imapsync because an enterprise (basystemes) paid me to install a
    new imap server without loosing huge old mailboxes located on a far away
    remote imap server accessible by a low bandwith link. The tool imapcp
    (written in python) could not help me because I had to verify every
    mailbox was well transfered and delete it after a good transfert.
    imapsync started its life being a copy_folder.pl patch. The tool
    copy_folder.pl comes from the Mail-IMAPClient-2.1.3 perl module tarball
    source (in the examples/ directory of the tarball).

EXAMPLES
    While working on imapsync parameters please run imapsync in dry mode (no
    modification induced) with the --dry option. Nothing bad can be done
    this way.

    To synchronize the imap account "buddy" on host "imap.src.fr" to the
    imap account "max" on host "imap.dest.fr" (the passwords are located in
    too files "/etc/secret1" for "buddy", "/etc/secret2" for "max") :

     imapsync --host1 imap.src.fr  --user1 buddy --passfile1 /etc/secret1 \
              --host2 imap.dest.fr --user2 max   --passfile2 /etc/secret2

    Then, you will have buddy's mailbox updated from max's mailbox.

SECURITY
    You can use --password1 instead of --passfile1 to give the password but
    it is dangerous because any user on your host can see the password by
    using the 'ps auxwwww' command. Using a variable (like $PASSWORD1) is
    also dangerous because of the 'ps auxwwwwe' command. So, saving the
    password in a well protected file (600 or rw-------) is the best
    solution.

    imasync is not protected against sniffers on the network so the
    passwords are in plain text.

EXIT STATUS
    imapsync will exit with a 0 status (return code) if everything went
    good. Otherwise, it exits with a non-zero status.

    So if you have a buggy internet connection, you can use this loop in a
    Bourne shell:

            while ! imapsync ...; do 
                  echo imapsync not complete
            done

AUTHOR
    Gilles LAMIRAL lamiral@linux-france.org

LICENSE
    imapsync is free, gratis and open source software cover by the GNU
    General Public License. See the GPL file included in the distribution or
    the web site http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html

BUGS
    No known serious bug.

    Multiple copies: Multiple copies of the emails on the destination
    server. Some IMAP servers (Domino for example) add some headers for each
    message transfered. The message is transfered again and again each time
    you run imapsync. This is bad of course. The explanation is that
    imapsync considers the message is not the same since headers have
    changed (one line added) and size too (the header part). You can look at
    the headers found by imapsync by using the --debug option (and search
    for the message on both part). The way to avoid this problem is by using
    options --skipheader and --skipsize, like this (avoid headers beginning
    whith X-):

     imapsync ... --skipheader '^X-' --skipsize

    You can use --skipheader only one time; if you need to skip several
    different headers use the "or" perl regex caracter which is "|".
    Example:

     imapsync ... --skipheader '^X-|^Status|^Bcc'

    Flags : with some IMAP servers the flags are not very well copied the
    first time. Run imapsync twice if you want the flags set correctly.
    (fixed since 1.28 release but wait for a time before removing those
    lines)

    Report any bugs to the author: lamiral@linux-france.org

IMAP SERVERS
    Success stories reported with the following imap servers (softwares
    inames are in alphabetic order) :

     - BincImap 1.2.3
     - CommunicatePro server (Redhat 8.0)
     - Courier IMAP 1.5.1, 2.2.0, 2.1.1, 2.2.1
     - Critical Path (7.0.020)
     - Cyrus IMAP 1.5, 1.6, 2.1, 2.1.15, 2.1.16, 2.1.18
       2.2.1, 2.2.2-BETA, 2.2.10
     - DBMail 1.2.1
     - Dovecot 0.99.10.4
     - Domino (Notes) 6.5, 5.0.6, 5.0.7
     - Groupwise IMAP (Novell). Buggy so see the FAQ.
     - iPlanet Messaging server 4.15, 5.1
     - IMail 7.15 (Ipswitch/Win2003), 8.12
     - MDaemon 7.0.1
     - MS Exchange Server 5.5
     - Netscape Mail Server 3.6 (Wintel !)
     - Netscape Messaging Server 4.15 Patch 7
     - OpenWave
     - Qualcomm Worldmail (NT)
     - Samsung Contact IMAP server 8.5.0
     - SunONE Messaging server 5.2, 6.0 (SUN JES - Java Enterprise System)
     - UW-imap servers (imap-2000b) rijkkramer IMAP4rev1 2000.287
       (RedHat uses UW like 2003.338rh)
     - UW - QMail v2.1

    Please report to the author any success or bad story with imapsync and
    don't forget to mention the IMAP server software names and version on
    both sides. This will help future users. To help the author maintaining
    this section report the two lines at the begining of the output if they
    are useful to know the softwares. Example:

     From software :* OK louloutte Cyrus IMAP4 v1.5.19 server ready
     To   software :* OK Courier-IMAP ready

    You can use option --justconnect to get those lines.

    And please rate imapsync at http://freshmeat.net/projects/imapsync/

HUGE MIGRATION
    Have a special attention on options --subscribed --subscribe --delete
    --expunge --maxage --maxsize

    If you have many mailboxes to migrate think about a little shell
    program. Write a file called file.csv (for example) containing users and
    passwords. The separator used in this example is ';'

    The file.csv file content is :

    user0001;password0001;user0002;password0002
    user0011;password0011;user0012;password0012 ...

    And the shell program is just :

    { while IFS=';' read u1 p1 u2 p2; do imapsync --user1 $u1 --password1
    $p1 --user2 $u2 --password2 $p2 ... done ; } < file.csv

    Welcome in shell programming !

Hacking
    Feel free to hack imapsync as the GPL Licence permits it.

Links
    Entries for imapsync: http://www.imap.org/products/showall.php

SIMILAR SOFTWARES
      offlineimap : http://gopher.quux.org:70/devel/offlineimap/
      mailsync    : http://mailsync.sourceforge.net/
      imapxfer    : http://www.washington.edu/imap/
                    part of the imap-utils from UW.
      mailutil    : replace imapxfer in 
                    part of the imap-utils from UW.
                    http://www.gsp.com/cgi-bin/man.cgi?topic=mailutil
      imaprepl    : http://www.bl0rg.net/software/
                    http://freshmeat.net/projects/imap-repl/
      imap_migrate: http://freshmeat.net/projects/imapmigration/
      imapcopy    : http://home.arcor.de/armin.diehl/imapcopy/imapcopy.html
      migrationtool http://sourceforge.net/projects/migrationtool/
      pop2imap    : http://www.linux-france.org/prj/pop2imap/

    Feedback (good or bad) will be always welcome.

AUTHOR
    Gilles LAMIRAL earn his living writing, installing, configuring and
    teaching free open and gratis softwares. Don't hesitate to pay him for
    that services.

    $Id: imapsync,v 1.132 2005/05/20 03:18:48 gilles Exp $