MDaemon to Microsoft Exchange migration

Figure 2Due to the large amount of user accounts, as well as their high volume of data in each mailbox, direct migration was out of the questions. So I followed a server co-existence approach (Figure 2). In this scenario the two independent mailing systems work simultaneously, both serving users under the same domain name.

 

 

To achieve such a scenario, you need to perform the following configurations on the two servers:

• Setup MDaemon to relay all emails sent to non-existing users, to another server, the Exchange Server in our case. Navigate to Setup -> select “Default Domain & Servers” option and highlight the “Unknown Mail” tab  (Screenshot 1). You have to enable advanced options, and enter your Exchange server’s hostname or internal IP address and receiving port. You might also have to drop some NDR (Non Delivery Report) settings, to avoid possibly false undeliverable notifications. NDRs are controlled by the top boxes under the same tab (“Incoming mail sent to local users who don’t exist should be…”). In my case I unticked all 3 of them.

• Setup MDaemon to accept emails relayed from the Exchange Server, to other local or Internet recipients (Screenshot 2). To do this, you have navigate to Setup -> select “Security Settings” option and highlight the “Relay Control” tab. There, you have to loosen up the relay security settings, and allow TRUSTED hosts/IPs relay through MDaemon. Then make sure that you add your Exchange Server’s Hostname and internal IP address under the “Trusted Hosts” tab.

• Setup a receiving connector on Exchange Server, to trust and accept emails relayed from the MDaemon server, for domain’s mailboxes unknown to MDaemon. This is done from Server Configuration -> Hub Transport -> Receive Connectors. Enter MDaemon’s IP address as the remote server, under the Network tab (Screenshot 3). To simplify things, I chose to allow Basic Authentication (under the connector’s Authentication tab), for all groups.

• Setup a send connector on Exchange Server (Organization Configuration -> Hub Transport -> Send Connectors), of SMTP type and * as the Address Space. Under Network tab, select to route emails via a smarthost, and enter your MDaemon’s address as one (Screenshot 4). You can also set your preferred Authentication Method, by pressing the “Change” button below. This connector will be used to relay all outgoing emails via the MDaemon server, for mailboxes not existing on the Exchange server. * Remember: after every Hub Transport configuration, the corresponding Windows “Microsoft Exchange * ” service, requires a restart to apply the changes.

 

At this point, if you are using a software or hardware email archiving solution, you must be careful. Even though all incoming/outgoing emails pass through MDaemon server which is configured to archive them; the internal communication between users residing on the Exchange Server, is just local. Those emails never reach MDaemon, therefore not archived.

But at the same time, having both servers archiving your emails, can results into duplicate copies. There is no easy solution for this issue, so you have to compromise some email archiver space. After all, typically such software/appliances have advanced compression algorithms, saving up space from duplicate copies. So, as soon as some users have been migrated to the Exchange Server, it’s wise to setup the email archiving (journal) functionality (Screenshot 5).

Some other helpful steps I performed are listed below. They are not compulsory for the migration process:

• To make the Exchange Server directly accessible from the outside world throughout the migration process, so users can access their new mailboxes, I assigned it its own public IP address. Also made sure that the firewall will allow access to important ports (eg 25, 110, 443, 465, 567, 993 etc), to enable use of OWA/IMAP/SMTP etc services from outside the company.
• Getting an SSL certificate from a CA, is highly recommended (if you are paying for a fully licensed Exchange Server, this is not the part where you cut back costs). Useful instructions on how to get the certificate installed can be found here.

Up to this point, you should have a functional co-existence setup. You can create some Exchange mailboxes and run some internal tests and external tests to verify its correct operation.

The only thing missing, is your data! You can say we are “half way there”, but when you are done with this project and look back on how much time you spent struggling with each and every mailbox to migrate as transparently as possible, this parts feels like FOREVER! But anyway, stay focused and pay attention to the following steps. We can finally start the actual data migration!

• Export MDaemon’s accounts list. Click on Accounts -> Exporting -> Export accounts to a Comma Delimited file. This might take a while, but eventually you will have a list of all mailboxes, including their username and password in a CSV format (Screenshot 6). This might not sound very secure, the server admin knowing every user’s password, but comes handy in situations like this.

After spending some time, researching for an email migration solution, to make my life easier, my research quickly came to an end with only a small amount of tools promising to help me carry out the task. Most of the tools were carrying a high price tag, per migrated mailbox. Other tools were too intrusive, involving the user’s Outlook Exporting his/her mailbox(es) into PST files and then Importing them to the Exchange Server mailbox via Outlook again.

Finally, the most appropriate tool for the task was just under my nose. IMAPsync is included in Ubuntu’s repositories and of course it’s free and open source under WTFPL license. This tools could be ran from the server or any PC, and would login into 2 IMAP accounts and synchronize their contents. It’s a higher level migration than I was hoping, over the IMAP protocol, therefore slower; but I was happy as long as it worked! It’s a great tool, don’t forget to donate! 🙂

Oh the irony… migrating to a Microsoft product, using Linux! 🙂

• Installing IMAPsync under Ubuntu, is as simple as typing:

sudo apt-get install imapsync

in a terminal window. Then you can read its manual, typing  ” man imapsync ”   in the terminal window again. Alternatively, you can save your time, and use the same command I used and provide in this post, at a later stage.

After this, we are ready to migrate our first mailbox. Here is a the process I followed for each mailbox migration:

1. Create a mailbox for a new/existing Active directory user on Exchange Server (eg. user@example.com). In the mailbox’s properties, add any email aliases and forwardings you might require.
2. Make sure that you know user’s both MDaemon (exported earlier in CSV) and Active Directory credentials (you will have to ask the user for this, or reset the password yourself)
3. Rename the MDaemon email account to something else (eg. from user@example.com to user-0@example.com), so all new emails for user@example.com will be forwarded to the Exchange Server account.
4. Find the MDaemon’s maillists the renamed account (user-0@example.com) is member of (in account’s settings, Options Tab).
5. Open individually every mail list, and replace the renamed account (user-0@example.com) with the account’s original name, eg. user@example.com (has to be typed/added manually).
6. Remove any aliases/forwardings assigned to the MDaemon mailbox, and add them to the Exchange Server mailbox. Skipping this step can lead into tricky situations, where emails are not sent or received.
7. Migrate the MDaemon mailbox to Exchange account using the IMAPsync tool. I used the following command command:
   imapsync –host1 MdaemonIP –user1 MDaemonUser –password1 MDaemonPass –host2 ExchangeIP –user2 ExUser –password2 ExPass –authmech2 PLAIN –syncinternaldates
   MDaemonIP: MDaemon server’s internal IP address
   MDaemonUser: migrating mailbox (eg. user-0@example.com)
   MDaemonPass: the account’s password exported earlier
   ExchangeIP: Exchange Server’s internal IP address
   ExUser: Active Directory username
   ExPass: Active Directory username
8. Meanwhile, you can setup the user’s new Exchange mailbox to his Outlook, while it is being populated by old emails, as well as newly arriving ones, so he will still be able to work.
9. Ideally the user should not move any emails around folders during this process.
10. In case of a huge mailbox, if the user needs to access some old emails, you can correct the MDaemon’s IMAP account’s credentials in Outlook (eg. set account’s username to: user-0@example.com).
11. User should NOT move/delete any emails from MDaemon mailbox, while migration procedure is taking place.
12. When IMAPsync process has completed, it is safe to disable the MDaemon account, and remove it from the user’s Outlook.

Plenty of loooong endless days/weeks/months later repeating the above procedure, you should be done! I know it’s not the fastest method, but it’s the safest one, since you gradually move forwards to Exchange Server, troubleshooting any issues coming up and avoiding repeating possible mistakes.Using IMAPsync you can perform a mass migration, but personally, I wouldn’t risk it!

When you are done migrating user accounts, remember to recreate the Distribution Lists on Exchange Server, and disable them on MDaemon.

When this last step is finally completed, it is time to kill the MDaemon! Make sure that you perform this task during non-working hours! As Murphy’s law states: “If anything can go wrong, it will!” 🙂

What’s left to be done is simple. But if anything goes wrong, it means downtime on the mail services. Something personally I couldn’t risk.

1. Remove the MDaemon-specific send/receive connectors, and setup your corresponding connectors to communicate with the Internet directly. Restart the Transport Service
2. Change the NAT (or whatever method you use) of the MDaemon’s public IP address, to also point to the Exchange Server.
3. Specify to the firewall, to relay emails to the Exchange Server’s internal IP address from now on, and remove/replace any other MDaemon instances in its configuration
4. Cross your fingers and send plenty of external test emails, from various webmails to your company’s mailboxes
5. Unplug MDaemon server’s network connection for the next couple of days, just to make sure that everything works smoothly, and have MDaemon standby, in case something goes wrong, to revert back to (mailflow-wise).

That is all more or less! This is how I spent my “free time” for the past several weeks/months!

My name is Frank, and I have been MDaemon-free 10 days now! 🙂

I hope someone out there will find my experience useful, and benefit off it!

 

Frank