Archive ability?

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Marcusg
Posts: 50
Joined: Wed Nov 04, 2009 8:18 pm

Archive ability?

Post by Marcusg »

Is there a utility or tool we could use to archive old e-mails to a separate message store?

We'd like the ability to take all messages, say, over a year old in certain post office or mail boxes and migrate them to a new message store that can then be put into an offsite backup as archive data. Optionally it would be useful for that tool to have an interface that would allow us to selectively restore certain messages, mailboxes, or folders in a recovery situation.

Is this possible?

MailEnable-Ian
Site Admin
Posts: 9738
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2004 4:44 am
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Re: Archive ability?

Post by MailEnable-Ian »

Hi,

The only archiving option currently available in version 4.x series of MailEnable is an MTA level archiving agent, which can be configured so that all messages that pass the MTA can be copied to an archive folder for backup purposes. The folders will automatically be separated into directories by date. You can find the option by accessing the MTA properties window and navigating to the "Archiving" tab.
Regards,

Ian Margarone
MailEnable Support

scngan
Posts: 446
Joined: Fri Dec 30, 2005 1:27 pm

Re: Archive ability?

Post by scngan »

so, can i archive by only selected postoffice ?

MailEnable-Ian
Site Admin
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Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Re: Archive ability?

Post by MailEnable-Ian »

Hi,

Yes this can be done within the archiving properties window in the MTA properties.
Regards,

Ian Margarone
MailEnable Support

brashquido
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Jul 24, 2003 8:48 am
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Re: Archive ability?

Post by brashquido »

Sorry to bring up an old topic, however I believe the OP is asking for exactly what we are looking for. We also host post offices for hundreds of clients and need a way of being able to archive off old emails on a per post office level. I need to do some serious house cleaning on our mail server as it appears that nobody previous to myself in this role has ever archived off old clients when they exit.

Does the MTA level archiving feature Ian mentions allow you to archive messages already in a particular post office, or does it only archive messages processes after you have set archiving going?
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MailEnable-Ben
Posts: 5858
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2004 6:49 am
Location: Melbourne

Re: Archive ability?

Post by MailEnable-Ben »

This process will only backup mail throughput. If you are wanting to backup mailboxes before you delete them just in case they are requested/required then you can take a copy of the mailbox folder at the following location:

\MailEnable\Post Offices\[Post Office Name]\Mailroot\[Mailbox Name]

Or course you could also take a copy of a complete post office at this location:

\MailEnable\Post Offices\[Post Office Name]
Regards,

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brashquido
Posts: 72
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Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Re: Archive ability?

Post by brashquido »

Too simple :roll: , thanks.
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trusnock
Posts: 132
Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2006 8:42 pm

Re: Archive ability?

Post by trusnock »

Ian,
Your Dec 20, 2009 message in this topic sounds like we can turn archiving for post offices on and off in the MTA Archiving properties page, but I don't see anything on that page to indicate I can do that. When I turn it on, ALL messages in and out of the server get archived to a single recipient. Am I misunderstanding something here?

While on the topic of archiving, I have a few more questions...

1) We are currently using the archiving feature in MxScan, but I don't think it can capture messages sent from WebMail to a recipient in the same post office because such messages would never hit the MTA. Am I correct that messages sent within a post office will never go through the MTA?

2) We are also using the built-in ME filter (as per KB entry ME020414 but modified to work on a per-post office basis). I like the modified ME020414 method but I would like it to deliver the messages to a folder other than "inbox" in the destination mailbox. Do you have any suggestions for accomplishing this? Is a filter-triggered batch file that copies the .MAI file a good approach?

We're using ME Enterprise 4.22.

Thanks,
-Tom R.

trusnock
Posts: 132
Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2006 8:42 pm

Re: Archive ability?

Post by trusnock »

Impatiently, I started tinkering with a batch file to use with the built-in filter feature to do what we want, and I'm 99% there with only one remaining issue.

I set up a filter for each post office (using the "Where the message is associated with this post office" criteria to call my "mailenable-message-archiving.bat" script with a set of parameters: Message ID, Connector, post office, mailbox, archive folder

My batch file copies the .MAI file from the Inbound queue folder to a date-stamped folder inside the specified "archive folder", very simple. (We have to delete the index.xml from the folder before it will appear in webmail, but we can live with or automate that).

The problem: If I send a message FROM a mailbox in one of our archive-enabled post offices TO a mailbox in a different one of our archive-enabled post offices, the message only gets archived for the sender post office.

I think this makes sense form MailEnable's perspective, because the message only passes through the MTA once. But I still need a workaround, and I'm stumped at the moment.

I realize MEFilter probably does this already, but I was trying to keep it really simple.

Any suggestions?

Here's the batch file:

Code: Select all

@echo off
set QFOLDER=D:\PROGRA~1\MAILEN~1\Queues
set POFOLDER=D:\PROGRA~1\MAILEN~1\Postoffices
set LOGFILE=C:\IT\Scripts\archiving.log
set DATEFOLDER=%date:~10,4%-%date:~4,2%-%date:~7,2%
set MSGID=%1
set CONNECTOR=%2
set POSTOFFICE=%3
set MAILBOX=%4
set ARCHIVEFOLDER=%5

REM Make sure the user's archive folder exists:
if not exist %POFOLDER%\%POSTOFFICE%\mailroot\%MAILBOX%\%ARCHIVEFOLDER%\%DATEFOLDER% mkdir %POFOLDER%\%POSTOFFICE%\mailroot\%MAILBOX%\%ARCHIVEFOLDER%\%DATEFOLDER%
if not exist %POFOLDER%\%POSTOFFICE%\mailroot\%MAILBOX%\%ARCHIVEFOLDER%\%DATEFOLDER% (
	echo ERROR: Failed to create archive folder %POFOLDER%\%POSTOFFICE%\mailroot\%MAILBOX%\%ARCHIVEFOLDER%\%DATEFOLDER%	  >> %LOGFILE%
	goto END
)

if exist %QFOLDER%\%MSGID%\Inbound\Messages\%CONNECTOR% (
	echo %DATE% %TIME% Processing message %CONNECTOR% in %MSGID%.  Copying to %ARCHIVEFOLDER%\%DATEFOLDER%\ folder under %MAILBOX%@%POSTOFFICE%. >> %LOGFILE%
	type %QFOLDER%\%MSGID%\Inbound\Messages\%CONNECTOR% | findstr "^Subject: " >> %LOGFILE%
	copy %QFOLDER%\%MSGID%\Inbound\Messages\%CONNECTOR% %POFOLDER%\%POSTOFFICE%\mailroot\%MAILBOX%\%ARCHIVEFOLDER%\%DATEFOLDER% >> %LOGFILE%

) ELSE (
	echo %DATE% %TIME% ERROR: Unable to find message %CONNECTOR% in %MSGID%.  Failed to copy to %ARCHIVEFOLDER%\%DATEFOLDER%\ folder under %MAILBOX%@%POSTOFFICE%. >> %LOGFILE%
	goto END
)

:END
-Tom

MailEnable-Ben
Posts: 5858
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2004 6:49 am
Location: Melbourne

Re: Archive ability?

Post by MailEnable-Ben »

Yes that would probably be what I expected the Post Office Level filters are only inbound related. You could setup a global MTA filter for each post office that checks outbound from *@domain.com* and then run your script. It would mean check two queues:

Webmail - SF\inbound
SMTP AUTH - SMTP\inbound

For the deleting of the _inbox.xml file I would suggest you create a file in the folder named _change.dty this will force the email client to re index at next folder access. This is a better way to ensure that you do not have any problems due to file contentions.
Regards,

Product Services
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To keep track of all ME company updates and version releases you should subscribe to the MailEnable list at http://www.mailenable.com or the RSS feed http://www.mailenable.com/rss.

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