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⚠️ This page is part of the ISPmail guide for Debian Bookworm. Please use the newer guide for Debian Trixie.

# Migrating from your old (Bullseye) server

## Upgrade or fresh installation?

Section titled “Upgrade or fresh installation?”

I recommend that you set up a new server and make sure that the new mail server is working correctly before you start migrating existing email users to it. You may argue that Debian can be upgraded easily using “apt-get dist-upgrade” but that is very dangerous on a live mail server. Automatic configuration changes may have evil side effects and you risk losing emails. At least you are causing a downtime for your users.

If you follow my advice then get a new server and install Debian Bookworm on it. Once the user mailboxes are migrated and all works well you can tear down the old server.

Once your new server is installed come back here.

## Read before you type

Section titled “Read before you type”

Follow this guide to the end. Only then start attempting a migration. Inform your users about the migration and set a time when you intend to move email accounts to the new server. The change will require a DNS change which takes a while to be visible worldwide so your users will have a period when incoming email is delayed. If you proceed careful though not a single email will be lost.

So you have your new server up and running and did everything to make it a working mail server? You really read all the pages in this guide and did what they told you? Okay, then let’s start.

## Turn down the TTL of your MX record

Section titled “Turn down the TTL of your MX record”

The DNS “MX” record for your domain contains the hostname of your mail server. When switching to the new server you need to change the MX record. Every DNS record has a TTL (time-to-live) that defines the period of time that a record will stay valid even after you change it. Usually that TTL is rather high like 86400 seconds (=1 day). This information is used by caching name servers that they can use the cached values for a day. Turn that TTL down temporarily to 60 seconds so that the rest of the internet will pick up your change quicker. However it will take a day until everyone else on the internet picks up your TTL change.

## Migrate the mailserver database

Section titled “Migrate the mailserver database”

You need to copy the database that contains the control data about your email domains and accounts. Log into the old (Bullseye) server as root and back up the mailserver database. That is as easy as running…

    mysqldump mailserver > mailserver.sql

Copy that file to the new server (using scp) and import it there:

    mysql mailserver < mailserver.sql

Obviously any database changes on the old server from now on will have to be done on the new server as well until the migration is done.

## Roundcube contacts

Section titled “Roundcube contacts”

If your users are using Roundcube as a webmail interface then you should migrate their data like their contact lists. Dump the SQL from the old server:

    mysqldump roundcube > roundcube.sql

Copy that file to the new server and import it:

    mysql roundcube < roundcube.sql

One caveat though. To distinguish multiple mail servers Roundcube stores the server’s name in the mail_host column of the users table. So as a last step change that column if your new mail server has a new FQDN/hostname by running this SQL query on the new roundcube database:

    UPDATE users SET mail_host='new.mail.server';

## Migrate rspamd spam training data

Section titled “Migrate rspamd spam training data”

If you have been using rspamd with the Redis backend then copy over the Redis database from your previous server. Details are found in the rspamd chapter.

## Migrate the Maildirs hot

Section titled “Migrate the Maildirs hot”

Fortunately Dovecot uses the maildir format that stores emails as plain files on disk. Login to the new (Bookworm) server and use rsync to copy over the mails from the old (Bullseye) mail server:

    rsync -va oldserver:/var/vmail/ /var/vmail/

(Note the trailing slashes. Type them exactly as shown above or your files will end up in wrong places.)

There is no need to shut down Dovecot on your production Bullseye server. Copying the files while Dovecot is running will not break anything. This is called a “hot copy”. It may not be consistent but it will save time during the final synchronization.

## Copy certificates

Section titled “Copy certificates”

Copy over everything in /etc/letsencrypt and /var/lib/rspamd/dkim from your old to the new server.

    rsync -va oldserver:/etc/letsencrypt/ /etc/letsencrypt/rsync -va oldserver:/var/lib/rspamd/dkim/ /var/lib/rspamd/dkim/

## Downtime

Section titled “Downtime”

You told your users about the downtime, right? The time has come? Okay. Shut down Dovecot on both servers.

## Migrate the emails cold

Section titled “Migrate the emails cold”

Let’s synchronize again. rsync will only copy those files that have changed which makes it much faster than the first sync. On your new server run:

    rsync -va --delete oldserver:/var/vmail/ /var/vmail/

(The “`--delete`” option makes sure that files that have been removed from the old server will also be deleted from the new server. So if a user has deleted an email it will be deleted on the new server as well.)

The new Dovecot version uses a slightly different indexing mechanism. So force rebuilding the users’ indices:

    doveadm force-resync -A '*'

## Switch the DNS records

Section titled “Switch the DNS records”

For all your domains you will have to change the DNS “MX” or “A” record to point to your new server.

## Enable soft_bounce

Section titled “Enable soft_bounce”

Accidents happen. And you don’t want to lose emails. So run this command to enable your safety net on the new server:

    postconf soft_bounce=yes

This makes Postfix always keep emails in the queue that it would otherwise reject. So you can fix any errors and the queue will empty. Start Postfix and Dovecot on the new server. Watch your /var/log/mail.log and run “mailq” from time to time to see what emails get stuck in the queue. If you are certain that emails can be removed from the queue then use “postsuper -d QUEUE-ID” (as shown in the “mailq” output).

Once you are certain that emails are properly received and sent you can switch off the soft_bounce mode again:

    postconf soft_bounce=no

## Shut down the old server

Section titled “Shut down the old server”

If possible do a final backup of the old server. If users are not complaining then dismiss the old system after a week.