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3.2   Dovecot change clarification

From John Weber, Fri Nov 2 10:03:18 2007

If a person doesn't understand the message announcing the change then they probably don't know they had an mbox file in their home directory (it was probably created by some email client software they used at some point).   We are changing some software on the email server that interacts with this file.   The old software checks for the existence of mbox and moves email from the server to it, if it's there.   If not, the mail stays on the server.   Either way this probably wasn't noticed because the email client (webmail, outlook, etc) will present either scenario as Inbox.

The new server software will not move email to mbox, and it will stay on the server.

The most important implication of this change is that if a person wants to insure that their important email will be backed up (since we don't back up email data on the email server) they will need to move their mail from Inbox to other folders (which they may need to create).   Any other folder that is created to sort email into will be backed up as these are created in the person's home directory (and will count against their disk quota).   This issue will be relevant for either choice made below.

The question then is what to do with the email that is already in mbox?   Answers:

The choice is the user's.   If they don't know what mbox is though, I would recommend the "merge" option.

If there are questions please call the TCC help desk (835-5437).

-- 
John S. Weber
Tech Computer Center
Manager Systems Engineering
New Mexico Tech
Speare 147
jweber@nmt.edu
505.835.6713


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