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DSYNC(1)			    Dovecot			      DSYNC(1)

NAME
       dsync - Dovecot's mailbox synchronization utility

SYNOPSIS
       dsync [options] mirror location2
       dsync [options] backup location2

DESCRIPTION
       dsync is Dovecot's mailbox synchronization utility.  It can be used for
       several different use cases: Two-way synchronization  of	 mailboxes  in
       different  servers  (via ssh(1)), creating backups of mails to a remote
       server, and convert mailboxes from/to different mailbox formats.

       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 binary). The entire configuration can be changed by giving  -c
       parameter to another configuration file, or using -o parameter to over‐
       ride 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 currently sync only one user at a time. If you want to dsync
       all users, you'll need to get a list of all  users  and	execute	 dsync
       separately for each one.

       Any errors are written to stderr.

OPTIONS
       dsync recognizes the following command line options:

       -c config-file
	      read  configuration  from	 the  given  config-file.   By default
	      /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf will be used.	-C alt_char  Specifies
	      an  alternative  mailbox name character.	If source and destina‐
	      tion mailbox formats are different, it's possible	 that  on  one
	      side  there exists a mailbox name that isn't valid for the other
	      side.  These invalid mailbox names are fixed by  replacing  such
	      invalid characters with the given alt_char.  The default is '_'.

       -D     Activates debug messages and makes dsync more verbose.

       -f     Makes  dsync  run	 in  "full  sync" mode rather than "fast sync"
	      mode.  In fast sync mode dsync might skip syncing a mailbox,  if
	      both  locations  had  modified it equally many times (i.e. high‐
	      est-modseqs were equal), but with different changes.

       -m mailbox
	      Specifies the mailbox that should be synchronized or from	 which
	      mails  should  be	 converted.  The default is to synchronize all
	      respectively convert from all mailboxes.

       -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.

       -R     Reverse backup direction, so mails in location2 are backed up to
	      default mail location.

       -u user
	      Specifies that the userdb lookup for the given  user  should  be
	      done  and used to set up the environment (uid, gid, home, etc.).
	      By default the system user's current environment will be used.

       -v     Makes dsync more verbose.

ARGUMENTS
       location2
	      The first mail location is based on configuration (mail_location
	      or  userdb settings).  It's also possible to override it by giv‐
	      ing  -o mail_location=mail_location  setting.   This   parameter
	      defines the other mail location that is used.

	      If  the  location	 is on local filesystem, you can use a regular
	      mail_location, such as maildir:/backup/user/Maildir

	      If the location is on a remote server, dsync can ssh  to	it  by
	      giving  host  or	user@host as the parameter.  If user is speci‐
	      fied, it's given as -u parameter to dsync, not to ssh.  The  ssh
	      username is always the default.

	      The  final  way  to specify a location is to give a full command
	      line or a path to a script that executes the dsync.   For	 exam‐
	      ple:

	      ssh mailuser@host dsync -u user

COMMANDS
       dsync provides the following commands:

   mirror
       Does  a two-way synchronization between two mail locations.  Changes in
       both locations are synchronized to the other one,  without  losing  any
       changes	made  by  either  of  them.   Any  potential UID conflicts are
       resolved by giving them new UIDs.

   backup
       Backup mails from default mail location to location2 (or vice versa, if
       -R  parameter  is given).  No changes are ever done to the source loca‐
       tion.  Any changes done in destination are discarded.

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
   MIRRORING
       Mirror mailboxes to a remote server.  Any errors are written to stderr.

	      dsync -u username mirror username@example.com

       If you need more complex parameters to ssh, you can use e.g.:

	      dsync -u username mirror ssh -i id_dsa.dovecot mailuser@example.com dsync -u username

   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:

	      dsync mirror maildir:~/Maildir

       If you want to do this without any downtime, you can do the  conversion
       one user at a time.  Initially:

	   ·   Configuration uses mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir

	   ·   Set  up	the  possibility of doing per-user mail location using
	       userdb extra fields.

       Then for each user:

	   1.  Run dsync mirror once to do the initial conversion.

	   2.  Run dsync mirror 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.

	   4.  Wait for a few seconds and then kill the	 user's	 all  existing
	       imap and pop3 sessions (that are still using maildir).

	   5.  Run  dsync  mirror  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@dovecot.org>.  Information about reporting bugs	 is  available
       at: http://dovecot.org/bugreport.html

SEE ALSO
       doveadm(1), doveadm-kick(1), doveconf(1), dovecot(1)

       Additional resources:

       dsync design
	      http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Design/Dsync

Dovecot v2.2			  2011-01-16			      DSYNC(1)
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