Migrating Mail from OREGON (OpenVms) to DARKWING or GLADSTONE (Unix)

Lucy Lynch
User Support Specialist
llynch@darkwing.uoregon.edu

Did you know you can transfer your existing mail from Oregon (VMS) to a new or existing Unix account on Darkwing or Gladstone? This process uses IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) to make the transfer and leaves the source mail on VMS. If you want to use this transfer method, you'll need the following before you start:

1. An SSH client so you can log into Oregon and your Unix account
   
2. Your username (i.e. johndoe) and password for both accounts
   
3. The hostname for your Unix account (i.e., darkwing.uoregon.edu or gladstone.uoregon.edu)
   

Now, follow the steps below to transfer your Oregon mail to either a new or existing Unix account:

Moving Mail to a New Unix Account

Step One: Log in on Oregon (VMS) using SSH and type the following commands:

$ migrate -batch -toprefix "mail/"
From which host: oregon.uoregon.edu
Username on oregon.uoregon.edu: johndoe
Password for johndoe on oregon.uoregon.edu: xxxxxx
To which host: darkwing.uoregon.edu
Username on darkwing.uoregon.edu: johndoe
Password for johndoe on darkwing.uoregon.edu: xxxxxx some# messages moved ...

(This example will migrate email for the username johndoe from Oregon to the hostname darkwing.uoregon.edu and store it the mail subdirectory.)

Step Two: Next, log into your new Darkwing or Gladstone (Unix) account using SSH and type:

% ls -al .mail

If you see a message like this:

.mail: No such file or directory

then type:

% mv mail/INBOX .mail

If you see a message similar to this:

-rw------- 1 llynch cc_prod 1659 Sep 27 13:07 .mail

STOP! You need to use the process for an existing account.

Moving Mail to an Active Unix Account with an Existing Mail Directory:

Step One: Log into your Unix (Darkwing or Gladstone) account and type:

% mkdir oldmail

Step Two: Log into Oregon using SSH and move mail to oldmail, as follows:

$ migrate -batch -toprefix "oldmail/"
From which host: oregon.uoregon.edu
Username on oregon.uoregon.edu: johndoe
Password for johndoe on oregon.uoregon.edu: xxxxxx
To which host: darkwing.uoregon.edu
Username on darkwing.uoregon.edu: johndoe
Password for johndoe on darkwing.uoregon.edu: xxxxxx some# messages moved ...
Step Three: Log back into your Unix account using SSH and move your Oregon INBOX to the mail directory by typing:
% mv ~/oldmail/INBOX ~/mail/vms-mail

Additional Considerations: If you have additional oldmail that you want to move to your current mail directory, first type % ls -al oldmail You'll see something like this:

23% ls -al oldmail
total 50
drwxr-xr-x 2 llynch cc_acad 512 Sep 3 14:12 ./
drwxr-xr-x 34 llynch cc_prod 8192 Sep 3 14:12 ../
-rw------- 1 llynch cc_acad 1124 Sep 3 14:11 MAIL
-rw------- 1 llynch cc_acad 508 Sep 3 14:11 sent-mail
-rw------- 1 llynch cc_acad 997 Sep 3 14:12 sent-mail-mar-2002

Issue the following command to move files as needed, renaming those that may conflict with existing files in your Unix mail directory (typing ls -al mail will show the files in your mail directory):

% mv ~/oldmail/sentmail ~/mail/vms-sentmail

Forwarding your Oregon account: Once you've moved your mail, you'll want to set a forward on Oregon so that any new messages sent to your Oregon account automatically arrive in your Unix mailbox (see References below).

Note: Be sure to delete old mail on Oregon when you're positive everything has been moved successfully.

References:

For more details on forwarding your mail, go to http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~cchome/mailforward.html

To learn more about the migrate utility, see http://oregon.uoregon.edu:7633/doc/user_vms/book_u5.html#pmdf_migrate_utility

To view MAN pages for Unix commands (ls, mv, etc.), see http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/cgi-bin/man.cgi