Mail Backup

I need a way to make a copy of incoming mail and put it into a backup file
for each user. I'm using Postfix as my MTA.

Mail for, say, johnc, normally gets put into /var/mail/johnc. I'd like to
have another file, say, johnc.bak, which gets a copy of any mail that goes
into johnc. Is there an easy way to do this? I'd like to do this for all
users, so I don't think procmail is what I'm looking for.

Thanks

Dan

["Followup-To:" header set to alt.os.linux.]
Dan N enlightened us with:
> I need a way to make a copy of incoming mail and put it into a
> backup file for each user. I'm using Postfix as my MTA.

I'd do a 'cp -ua' in a cron job every few minutes.

> Mail for, say, johnc, normally gets put into /var/mail/johnc.

I suggest you move from mbox format to maildir format. It's a lot
safer ;-)

Sybren
--
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?
Frank Zappa

Dan N wrote:
> I need a way to make a copy of incoming mail and put it into a backup file
> for each user. I'm using Postfix as my MTA.
>
> Mail for, say, johnc, normally gets put into /var/mail/johnc. I'd like to
> have another file, say, johnc.bak, which gets a copy of any mail that goes
> into johnc. Is there an easy way to do this? I'd like to do this for all
> users, so I don't think procmail is what I'm looking for.
>
> Thanks
>
> Dan

Procmail maybe ?
Something like the following in .procmailrc will copy al incoming
messages to the "backup" mail folder :
:0 c:
backup


--
- Matt -

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:20:04 +0000, Matt Payton wrote:

> Procmail maybe ?
> Something like the following in .procmailrc will copy al incoming messages
> to the "backup" mail folder :
> :0 c:
> backup

Thanks.

I was thinking that I wanted a more central option, something that
wouldn't require setting up for each user, so I ruled out procmail. But I
guess I could put the .procmailrc in the skel directory so it would be set
up automatically for each user.

Dan

Dan N wrote:

> On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:20:04 +0000, Matt Payton wrote:
>
> > Procmail maybe ?
> > Something like the following in .procmailrc will copy al incoming
> > messages to the "backup" mail folder :
> > :0 c:
> > backup
>
> Thanks.
>
> I was thinking that I wanted a more central option, something that
> wouldn't require setting up for each user, so I ruled out procmail.
> But I guess I could put the .procmailrc in the skel directory so it
> would be set up automatically for each user.
>
> Dan

You could also consider running something like unison against the mail
folders in /var/mail. We did this before when we ran uw imapd as a
mail server and stored the inbox folders on a backup system. You could
setup unison centrally and not against each user and have it back up to
either a archive location or have it backup to a remote server.

Unison gets down to a content level and keeps pretty detailed records
on what it does and how it does it. We implemented it for about 20
users of our mail server at one point.

Moving to maildir makes things decidedly simpler since you can then
just do an rsync backup if you desire and use either the --delete flag
or not and keep a mail backup/archive location with everything.

I've also done this in postfix before using some setting in
/etc/aliases or somewhere and with a central procmailrc file in /etc.


--
Michael Perry | Do or do not. There is no try --Master Yoda
(E-Mail Removed) | http://www.lnxpowered.org

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 05:16:19 +0000, Michael Perry wrote:

> I've also done this in postfix before using some setting in /etc/aliases
> or somewhere and with a central procmailrc file in /etc.

Thanks.

I set up a central procmailrc file, simply saves the incoming mail into a
file for each user in a directory /var/mail/backup. And I also set up
logrotate to compress each backup file after a week. Turned out to be a
fairly easy to implement solution.

Dan