Migrating messages from an old mailserver to a new (courier)

So I have a linux box running Postfix/Courier for use as a mailserver, using Roundcube as a front-end. User accounts are setup in the usual Maildir, with cur, new, and tmp folders.

I had an older mailserver with a similar setup, except it was running Postfix/Dovecot - but the Maildir format was basically the same.

I had assumed that migrating messages from the old mailserver to the new would be as simple as copying the message files from the old user directory to the new. So I did just that. Now, after copying over the messages, when I actually login to roundcube, the new messages are there - except they all are from root and say "message can no longer be located on the server".

Hmm... so, just to make sure, I went into the directory that contains the old messages, and actually cated the message files to make sure they were okay. And they all seem to be fine - they have all the old message content available. But for some reason, courier is not recognizing them as "available".

Has anyone encountered this situation? If so, what are some possible reasons for this - and how can this be resolved?

Solution 1:

Be sure to preserve ownership / permissions on the files when you're copying them.