pop3-migration plugin

The pop3-migration plugin is used to preserve POP3 UIDLs.

When dsync is handling IMAP INBOX and requests a POP3 UIDL, the plugin connects to the POP3 server and figures out which IMAP messages match the POP3 messages and returns the appropriate POP3 UIDL.

For some POP3 servers it’s possible to use the more efficient pop3-uidl-migrate plugin.

Warning

Always do a test migration to verify that POP3 UIDLs are preserved correctly. If the UIDL format is wrong, all the mails have to be re-migrated.

See also

Migrating from any IMAP/POP3 server to Dovecot via dsync

This plugin requires a pop3c namespace configured for accessing the source POP3 server. For example:

namespace pop3c {
  prefix = POP3-MIGRATION-NS/
  separator = /
  location = pop3c:
  inbox = no
  list = no
  hidden = yes
}

The plugin works by matching POP3 messages to IMAP messages. This isn’t always trivial with some servers, which can keep the POP3 and IMAP messages in different order or include more than just IMAP INBOX messages in the POP3 messages.

Settings

pop3_migration_all_mailboxes

By default it’s assumed that POP3 contains the same messages as IMAP INBOX. If there are any unexpected mails, the migration fails. If the POP3 server includes other folders’ contents in POP3 as well, this setting needs to be enabled. It causes Dovecot to try to match POP3 messages in all the migrated folders, not just INBOX. There is no warning logged if any POP3 UIDLs are missing or if POP3 has messages that aren’t found from IMAP.

pop3_migration_ignore_extra_uidls

If IMAP INBOX has all messages that exist in POP3, but POP3 still has some additional messages, the migration fails. Enable this setting to log it as a warning and continue anyway. This could happen if there’s a race condition where a new mail is just delivered and it shows up in POP3 but not in IMAP.

pop3_migration_ignore_missing_uidls

If POP3 has messages that aren’t found from IMAP INBOX, and IMAP INBOX also has messages not found from POP3, the migration fails. Enable this setting to log it as a warning and continue anyway.

pop3_migration_mailbox

  • Default: <empty>

  • Values: String

This setting points to the POP3 INBOX in the configured pop3c namespace. This setting is required for the plugin to be active.

Example:

plugin {
  pop3_migration_mailbox = POP3-MIGRATION-NS/INBOX
}
pop3_migration_skip_size_check

IMAP and POP3 messages are attempted to be matched by the message sizes by default. This is the most efficient way of matching the messages, since both IMAP and POP3 listings can usually be looked up from indexes/caches. If the IMAP INBOX and POP3 listings don’t match exactly, or if two adjacent messages have the same size, the rest of the messages are matched by reading their headers.

If this setting is enabled, the message size check is skipped entirely and only headers are matched. This may be necessary for reliability if it’s known that the IMAP and POP3 messages cannot be matched by size anyway.

pop3_migration_skip_uidl_cache

If imapc is configured with persistent indexes, the POP3 UIDLs are stored into the imapc mailbox’s dovecot.index.cache files. Any following incremental migrations use these cached UIDLs if possible. This setting can be used to disable this in case there are any problems with the cache. This setting is unlikely to be ever needed.