Need mail migration advice -- from one cpanel account to another

[ezlynx]

I'm doing something wrong.

I set up a new site, named an account, moved all the old /mail/ folders from the old cpanel site to the new one.

The default address has everything in it, all the separate accounts are visible and it is the old -named account which shows up as:
-named
that is receiving the mail for that name. Also visible from the default address is the new account I set up before I moved the folders, shown as
+named (same name)

The mail isn't going to the new account.
If anyone knows of a step by step tutorial for correctly moving email from one host to another, I would be most appreciative. I am guessing some pointers, folders, or something are missing.

[chirpy]

You cannot just copy the mail/ subdirectory to move email accounts - the accounts have to be actually created. In particular you need to check that you have the accounts listed in the fils within /home/account/etc/domain.com/*

When you're done modifying things, you need to check that all the file ownerships are correct and then run:

/scripts/mailperm

[ezlynx]

Thanks! I was able to create the accounts. They also show up in three files precisely where you describe. I moved the old email to the new accounts by renaming the actual mail folders and later replacing the newly created folders with the old ones full of mail.

Looking where the connections should be, I found this info which tells me (I hope) that I've set up the three accounts correctly:

passwd:
linda:x:508:510::/home/kms2/mail/kmsaccount.com/linda:/usr/local/cpanel/bin/noshell
auction:x:508:510::/home/kms2/mail/kmsaccount.com/auction:/usr/local/cpanel/bin/noshell
order:x:508:510::/home/kms2/mail/kmsaccount.com/order:/usr/local/cpanel/bin/noshell

quota:
linda:10485760000
auction:104857600
order:1048576000

shadow:
linda:hxQEpQX4d/XMY:::::::
auction:tpEMAaaIMOluk:::::::
order:E7NEt/SljX/OY:::::::

I ran the script and got tons of:
Incorect mode on mailbox /home/kms2/mail/kmaccountt.com/[lots of folders on whole vps]

Strangely, I thought a problem I had at the default email account would go away but doesn't seem to have done so. When I log in to the default address, I still see addresses that no longer exist, even though they had been properly deleted (for example, I'd set up a "temporary" account to practice with, deleted it but it shows up as existing though no files are present in /mail/).

The linda folder seems to work though, which for me was the most important.

[winquest]

I am having a similar problem, does it mean that I have to create the email accounts first in the new server?

What I did was to create the domain in the new server and use the wget function to copy the home backup from my old server, and use tar -zx-f function to restore the home backup files. After doing that, mails sent to the old email accounts is lost in space .. ie the emails sent did not bounce and it did not appear in any of the mail box.

[chirpy]

As I posted, you cannot do that. You should really either copy the account over using the WHM tools, or recreate the accounts through cPanel. Otherwise, you're going to have to do as the OP above and recreate everything that cPanel needs by hand.

[winquest]

Thanks. COs I do not have the root password and my host are charging me a very high fee to do the transfer.

[Silver_2000]

I know the is an old thread but Im hoping someone else has made progress on moving mail

I have the foldernames in the mail/maildomain.com folder moved the files from previos server and ran mailperm but they dont work

This account was too big for the migrate tool - it kept failing so I move the files using this method

As you've probably already realised, the connection is likely to be timing out - the migration script is not great at

copying large amounts of data (especially over a slow link) reliably.

Here's what you can do:

1. Create cPanel Full Backups of the accounts (you have to do one at a time), it's probably easier to have them created

locally if you have the space, otherwise you'll have to have the FTP'd over somewhere.

2. Put the backup file into /home on your new server and extract it:

tar -xzf backup-xxxx-accountname.tar.gz

3. Rename the newly created backup-xxxx-accountname/ to:

mv backup-12.7.2006_18-55-20_xxxxxm/ cpmove-xxxxxxx/

4. Tar up the renamed directory:

tar -czf cpmove-accountname.tar.gz cpmove-accountname/

5. Restore the account with:

/scripts/restorepkg accountname

6. Tidy up the files in /home

rm -Rf /home/cpmove-accountname*
rm -Rf /home/cprestore/

It's messy but it should get your accounts back up. If anyone else has a cleaner method, do chime in