doveadm-sync(1) - phpMan

DOVEADM-SYNC(1)                     Dovecot                    DOVEADM-SYNC(1)

NAME
       doveadm-sync - Dovecot's two-way mailbox synchronization utility
       doveadm-backup - Dovecot's one-way mailbox synchronization utility
SYNOPSIS
       doveadm  [-Dv]  sync [-u user|-A|-F file] [-S socket_path] [-1fPRU] [-l
       secs] [-r rawlog path] [-m mailbox] [-g mailbox guid] [-n namespace|-N]
       [-x  exclude] [-a all mailbox] [-s state] [-T secs] [-t start date] [-e
       end date] [-O sync flag] [-I max size] -d|destination
       doveadm [-Dv] backup [-u user|-A|-F file] [-S socket_path] [-fPRU]  [-l
       secs] [-r rawlog path] [-m mailbox] [-g mailbox guid] [-n namespace|-N]
       [-x exclude] [-a all mailbox] [-s state] [-T secs] [-t start date]  [-e
       end date] [-O sync flag] [-I max size] -d|destination
DESCRIPTION
       dsync is Dovecot's mailbox synchronization utility.  It can be used for
       several different use cases: Two-way synchronization of mailboxes, cre-
       ating backups of mails, and convert mailboxes from/to different mailbox
       formats.  All of these can be used within the same  server  or  between
       different  servers  (via  ssh(1) or tcp connections).  Remote mailboxes
       can be accessed also via IMAP protocol, which allows  using  dsync  for
       mailbox migration purposes.
       You can run dsync in one of three modes:
              o      doveadm  backup  performs  one-way  synchronization.   If
                     there are any changes in the  destination  they  will  be
                     deleted,  so  the  destination will look exactly like the
                     source.
              o      doveadm sync performs two-way synchronization.  It merges
                     all  changes without losing anything.  Both the mailboxes
                     will end up looking identical after  the  synchronization
                     is finished.
              o      doveadm  sync -1 performs one-way synchronization, but it
                     merges the changes in destination without  deleting  any-
                     thing.  This doesn't currently work perfectly, so its use
                     should be limited.  Its main purpose is that during mail-
                     box  migration you can run doveadm backup multiple times,
                     then switch mails to be delivered to the new mailbox  and
                     run  doveadm  sync  -1 once more to transfer any last new
                     mails from the old mailbox.
                     The one-way algorithm is the same as two-way dsync  algo-
                     rithm  except  the  source  account  is  not modified. It
                     fetches the message's GUID (Global UID), which is used to
                     identify any conflicting UIDs in messages. As long as the
                     source and destination side has matching UID<->GUID  map-
                     ping,  those  emails  are assumed to be synced correctly.
                     Only after the first mismatch will changes begin.
                     Example: Source mailbox has  messages  UID  1..5;  source
                     mailbox  is  sync'd  using doveadm backup to the destina-
                     tion. Subsequently, UID 6  is  delivered  to  the  source
                     mailbox  and UID 1 is expunged from the destination mail-
                     box. In this example, UID 1 is kept removed (in  destina-
                     tion)  because  UID  1..5  have identical Date+Message-ID
                     headers. UID 6 is not seen in destination so it's copied.
                     If both source and destination have UID 6, but  the  mes-
                     sages are different, the headers don't match and both the
                     messages are kept in the destination  but  they're  given
                     new  UIDs  7  and 8 just to be sure any client didn't get
                     confused about what UID 6  actually  was.  Thus,  one-way
                     sync  begins  to  quickly diverge from the source mailbox
                     once changes start to occur on either side; one-way  sync
                     should  therefore  normally  only  be used within a short
                     period of time after a doveadm  backup  or  doveadm  sync
                     command was used to synchronize the mailboxes.
       There are also three different synchronization algorithms:
              o      Full synchronization (-f parameter) scans through all the
                     messages in all  the  mailboxes.   This  guarantees  that
                     everything  will  be synchronized, but it's unnecessarily
                     slow for incremental synchronization.
              o      Fast synchronization (default)  first  attempts  to  find
                     mailboxes  that have changed, and synchronize only those.
                     This is done by checking the mailboxes' metadata (NEXTUID
                     and  HIGHESTMODSEQ).  Usually this works fine, especially
                     with  one-way  synchronization,  but  if  both  sides  do
                     exactly  the same number of changes, the metadata may end
                     up containing the same values even if  the  changes  were
                     different.
              o      Stateful synchronization (-s parameter) is the most effi-
                     cient way to synchronize mailboxes.  It relies on  having
                     the  earlier  dsync run's state saved somewhere and being
                     passed to the next dsync run.  Based on this state  dsync
                     can  send only the changes that happened after the previ-
                     ous dsync run.  As long as the  state  or  the  mailboxes
                     aren't  corrupted  this  algorithm should work perfectly.
                     The replicator process uses this  internally  to  perform
                     most of the synchronization.
       The  syncing is done as perfectly as possible: an IMAP or a POP3 client
       shouldn't be able to notice any differences between the two  mailboxes.
       Two-way syncing means that it's safe to do any kind of modifications in
       both sides, and dsync will merge the changes without losing any changes
       done  on  either side.  This is possible because dsync can access Dove-
       cot's index logs that keep track of changes.  It's of  course  possible
       to  have  conflicts  during  merging, these are resolved in a safe way.
       See the dsync design document for more information.
       dsync uses the same configuration files as the  rest  of  Dovecot  (via
       doveconf(1) binary).  The entire configuration can be changed by giving
       -c parameter to another configuration file, or using  -o  parameter  to
       override  specific  settings.  When executing a remote dsync program it
       works the same way: it uses its own local configuration.
       dsync can be run completely standalone.  It doesn't require any Dovecot
       server  processes to be running, except when using -u parameter to do a
       userdb lookup from auth process.
       dsync can sync either one or multiple users using the -u or -A  parame-
       ters.   For  continuous  replication you can use the Dovecot replicator
       process, which automatically runs dsync whenever messages have changed.
OPTIONS
       Global doveadm(1) options:
       -D     Enables verbosity and debug messages.
       -o setting=value
              Overrides  the  configuration  setting  from  /etc/dovecot/dove-
              cot.conf  and from the userdb with the given value.  In order to
              override multiple settings, the -o option may be specified  mul-
              tiple times.
       -v     Enables verbosity, including progress counter.
       Command specific options:
       -A     If  the  -A option is present, the command will be performed for
              all users.  Using this option in combination with  system  users
              from  userdb  { driver = passwd } is not recommended, because it
              contains also users with a lower UID  than  the  one  configured
              with the first_valid_uid setting.
              When  the  SQL  userdb  module  is used make sure that the iter-
              ate_query setting in  /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf.ext  matches
              your  database  layout.  When using the LDAP userdb module, make
              sure that  the  iterate_attrs  and  iterate_filter  settings  in
              /etc/dovecot/dovecot-ldap.conf.ext match your LDAP schema.  Oth-
              erwise doveadm(1) will be unable to iterate over all users.
       -F file
              Execute the command for all the users in the file.  This is sim-
              ilar  to the -A option, but instead of getting the list of users
              from the userdb, they are read from the given  file.   The  file
              contains one username per line.
       -1     Do one-way synchronization instead of two-way synchronization.
       -f     Do full synchronization.
       -N     Synchronize  all  the  available  namespaces.   By  default only
              namespaces that don't have explicit location  setting  are  syn-
              chronized.
       -P     Run  a  doveadm-purge(1)  for  the  destination (remote) storage
              after synchronization.
       -R     Do a reverse sync. Normally, messages would be pushed  from  the
              local  system  to the destination (remote). This option reverses
              the flow, and will instead pull messages from the remote to  the
              local storage.
       -S socket_path
              The option's argument is either an absolute path to a local UNIX
              domain socket, or a hostname and port (hostname:port), in  order
              to connect a remote host via a TCP socket.
              This allows an administrator to execute doveadm(1) mail commands
              through the given socket.
       -T secs
              Specify the time in seconds, how long doveadm(1) should wait for
              stalled I/O operations.  The default timeout is 600 seconds.
       -U     This  is  used  internally by replicator to have dsync notify it
              when the synchronization is finished.
       -d     Use the  default  destination,  which  is  looked  up  from  the
              mail_replica userdb extra field.
       -g mailbox_guid
              Same  as -m, but find the mailbox to be synchronized by its GUID
              instead of by name.
       -l secs
              Lock the dsync for this user.  Wait for maximum secs before giv-
              ing  up.  This parameter should be used to avoid broken synchro-
              nization if it's possible that dsync is being  run  concurrently
              for the same user.
       -m mailbox
              Synchronize only this mailbox name.
       -n namespace
              Synchronize only the specified namespace.  This parameter can be
              used multiple times.
       -a all mailbox
              Name for the "All mails" virtual mailbox.  If  specified,  mails
              are  attempted  to  be copied from this mailbox instead of being
              saved separately. This may reduce the total disk space usage  as
              well as disk IO.
       -t start date
              Skip any mails whose received-timestamp is older than the speci-
              fied time.
       -e end date
              Skip any mails whose received-timestamp is newer than the speci-
              fied time.
       -O sync flag
              Sync  only mails that have the specified flag.  If the flag name
              begins with "-", sync all mails except the ones with the  speci-
              fied flag.
       -I max size
              Skip any mails larger than the specified size.
       -r rawlog_path
              Running dsync remotely, write the remote input/output traffic to
              the specified log file.
       -s previous_state
              Use stateful synchronization.  If the previous state is unknown,
              use  an  empty string.  The new state is always printed to stan-
              dard output.
       -u user/mask
              Run the command only for the given user.  It's also possible  to
              use '*' and '?' wildcards (e.g. -u *@example.org).
              When  neither  the  -A  option,  nor the -F file option, nor the
              -u user was specified, the command will  be  executed  with  the
              environment of the currently logged in user.
       -x mailbox_mask
              Exclude  the  specified mailbox name/mask.  The mask may contain
              "?" and "*" wildcards.  The mask can also be a special-use  name
              (e.g. \Trash).  This parameter can be used multiple times.
ARGUMENTS
       destination
              This argument specifies the synchronized destination.  It can be
              one of:
              location
                     Same as mail_location setting, e.g. maildir:~/Maildir
              remote:login@host
                     Uses dsync_remote_cmd setting to connect  to  the  remote
                     host (usually via ssh)
              remoteprefix:login@host
                     This  is  the  same  as remote, except "user@domain\n" is
                     sent before dsync protocol starts.   This  allows  imple-
                     menting  a  trusted  wrapper  script  that  runs  doveadm
                     dsync-server by reading the username from the first line.
              tcp:host[:port]
                     Connects to remote doveadm server via TCP.   The  default
                     port is specified by doveadm_port setting.
              tcps:host[:port]
                     This is the same as tcp, but with SSL.
              command [arg1 [, arg2, ...]]
                     Runs  a  local command that connects its standard input &
                     output to a dsync server.
EXIT STATUS
       dsync will exit with one of the following values:
       0   Synchronization was done perfectly.
       2   Synchronization was done without errors, but some changes  couldn't
           be  done,  so  the mailboxes aren't perfectly synchronized. Running
           dsync again usually fixes this. Typically this occurs  for  message
           modification  sequences  with  newly created mailboxes. It can also
           occur if one of the mailboxes change during the syncing.
       1, >2
           Synchronization failed.
EXAMPLE
   SYNCHRONIZATION
       Synchronize mailboxes with a remote server.  Any errors are written  to
       stderr.
              doveadm sync -u username AT example.com remote:server-replica.example.com
       If you need more complex parameters to ssh, you can use e.g.:
              doveadm sync -u username AT example.com ssh -i id_dsa.dovecot \
              mailuser AT example.com doveadm dsync-server -u username AT example.com
   CONVERTING
       Assuming    that    the    mail_location    setting    in    /etc/dove-
       cot/conf.d/10-mail.conf is set to:  mail_location  =  mdbox:~/mdbox,  a
       logged  in  system  user  may convert her/his mails from its Maildir in
       her/his home directory to the mdbox mailbox format.  The  user  has  to
       execute the command:
              doveadm sync maildir:~/Maildir
       If  you want to do this without any downtime, you can do the conversion
       one user at a time.  Initially:
           o   Configuration uses mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir
           o   Set up the possibility of doing per-user  mail  location  using
               userdb extra fields.
       Then for each user:
           1.  Run doveadm sync once to do the initial conversion.
           2.  Run  doveadm  sync  again, because the initial conversion could
               have taken a while and new changes could have  occurred  during
               it.   This  second  time  only applies changes, so it should be
               fast.
           3.  Update mail extra field in userdb to mdbox:~/mdbox.  If  you're
               using  auth  cache,  you  need  to flush it, e.g.  doveadm auth
               cache flush.
           4.  Wait for a few seconds and then kill (doveadm kick) the  user's
               all  existing  imap  and  pop3  sessions  (that are still using
               maildir).
           5.  Run doveadm sync once more to apply  final  changes  that  were
               possibly  done.   After  this  there  should  be  no changes to
               Maildir, because the user's mail location has been changed  and
               all existing processes using it have been killed.
       Once  all users have been converted, you can set the default mail_loca-
       tion to mdbox and remove the per-user mail locations from userdb.
REPORTING BUGS
       Report bugs, including doveconf -n output, to the Dovecot Mailing  List
       <dovecot AT dovecot.org>.   Information  about reporting bugs is available
       at: http://dovecot.org/bugreport.html
SEE ALSO
       doveadm(1), doveadm-auth(1), doveadm-kick(1),  doveadm-purge(1),  dove-
       conf(1)
       Additional resources:
       dsync design
              http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Design/Dsync

Dovecot v2.3                      2015-08-31                   DOVEADM-SYNC(1)