email conversion

There are three stages to conversion:

1. Converting mail handling procedures so that new incoming mail is retrieved from the new server using IMAP or POP3, and new outgoing mail queued on the new server.
   See the Email Conversion Guide to set mail forwarding.
2. Converting existing old mail folders so that they can be read using the new tools, and if uploaded to the IMAP server, accessed from arbitrary IMAP clients (e.g. Netscape).
   See here to move from the VMS cluster to trmail. See mail-extract to move from VMS to a different Unix (Linux, Irix) server.
3. Converting existing email addressbooks and mailing lists to operate with the new tools (Netscape 4)
   See below.

• vmsdis2ldif - convert VMS distribution list to LDIF addressbook
• adrbook2ldif - convert Unix Pine and Elm addressbooks to LDIF format; also common DCL assignments of the form

  $ define name     "mx%""name@xx.edu"""
  $ assign "mx%""name@xx.edu""" name ! First Last
    or
  $ assign "mx%""name@xx.edu""" name ! Last, First 
  

• adrbook2csv - convert Unix Pine and Elm addressbooks to IMP CSV (comma-separated values) for import to IMP Webmail

Note on usage: If not installed, Perl scripts such as adrbook2ldif may be run eg.

# perl adrbook2ldif  ~/.addressbook  pine.ldif

$ perl usr1:[advax]vmsdis2ldif my.dis my.ldif

vmsdis2ldif will take a VMS distribution list (.DIS suffix by default) normally used as a VMS mail destination, e.g. "@users", and generate an LDIF addressbook format as used by Netscape 4. This may be copied to Unix or Windows and then imported into an existing Netscape addressbook. LDIF requires that all list entries also have individual entries; this is taken care of in the script but may lead to conflicts when importing multiple lists. It is possible to create multiple addressbooks, one for each list, to avoid potential conflict. When a new entry with the same email address is imported into an existing addressbook in Netscape 4, the old entry is overwritten. This may lead to the loss of edited data, such as contact information.

adrbook2ldif converts Unix Pine or Elm addressbooks into Netscape 4 LDIF format. Individual entries are converted to LDIF records, preserving information in all fields. Lists are generated using individual member entries where they exist, and creating extra entries where they do not. adrbook2ldif will also convert VMS files which use DCL "assign" or "define" to define VMS logical symbols for MX% addresses. Some effort is made to preserve comments and in many cases generate a full name record. However, many records will require review and editing.

Other mail conversion

• vmsmailtounix - convert a single VMS mail folder (extracted to a file) to Unix mailbox format
• mail-extract - on VMS, extract all mail folders and convert to separate Unix mailbox files in a given directory

This tool may be invoked on VMS as e.g. "perl mail-extract. scr0:" (or "perl USR1:[ADVAX]mail-extract. scr0:"), which will extract all your VMS mail folders into a series of text files on SCR0: named *.VMS. These may then be placed in your Unix mail directory, typically ~/mail, where they may be opened in a Unix mail tool such as Netscape, Pine etc.

These scripts are available on the cluster as:

• REG::USR1:[ADVAX]MAIL-EXTRACT.
• REG::USR1:[ADVAX]VMSMAILTOUNIX.
• REG::USR1:[ADVAX]ADRBOOK2LDIF.
• REG::USR1:[ADVAX]VMSDIS2LDIF.

Related Pages:

• Email Conversion Guide
• LDAP Directory Setup
• Netscape filters (inbox + junkmail)
• UBE filter analysis
• Filtering junk mail at TRIUMF

Artie Fishall has nothing to do with this page. Do not send him mail!
Same goes for Nemo, Odysseus, Ulysses, Aaron, 123@triumf.ca, Aaron Aardvaark <aaardvaark@triumf.ca>, Aaron Anthony Aardvaark, 911@triumf.ca, Abracadabra, Abigail Too, Xerxes 123, 411@triumf.ca, Oolon Colluphid.