Converting to IMAP from Netscape/Movemail
If you access your email primarily from unix computers in
the CSB core, you probably use MOVEMAIL or a similar program.
Use this procedure if you presently use Netscape to access
your mail from the CSB Core unix computers, and keep your
mail in multiple folders in your Core account. If you use
another program (like Pine) that keeps mail in multiple
folders, you can use this procedure as a guide, but the
automated script will probably not work.
- In Netscape, in the File menu, select Empty
Trash, then . (Might as well start
with a clean slate).
- Exit from Netscape and any other mail-reading program.
- Verify the your mail folders are kept in your directory
$HOME/Mail. If not, the procedure is similar, but
a few adjustments have to be made. See the CSB Core
staff.
- Make a backup of your Mail directory:
cd $HOME
mkdir /srv/temp/$USER
tar cf /srv/temp/$USER/mailsave.tar Mail
gzip /srv/temp/$USER/mailsave.tar
chmod 600 /srv/temp/$USER/mailsave.tar
mv /srv/temp/$USER/mailsave.tar.gz .
You now have a complete archive of your saved mail up
to this point. If anything goes wrong, you should be
able to recover.
- The Core IMAP is configured to use a directory named
CSBimap instead of Mail. We now copy all
your folders from Mail to CSBimap. At the
same time, unnecessary files are removed, and a list of
your folders, $HOME/.mailboxlist is generated. All
this is accomplished by typing, setup-imap.
- If the previous step appears to have worked, you should
now test the new configuration. Follow the
instructions for configuring
Netscape 4.x (assuming you are working on a Core unix
workstation) or
instructions for configuring
Netscape 6.x if you are working from a platform
running that version. Make sure you can read new mail,
that you can access your old folders, and that you can
move mail from one folder to another.
- If everything went well with the test you should now
delete your old Mail folder. (You have a complete
backup of it in $HOME/mailsave.tar.gz.
cd $HOME
rm -r Mail