230 lines
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230 lines
10 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
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<HTML>
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<HEAD>
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<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="SGML-Tools 1.0.9">
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<TITLE>MS Outlook to Unix Mailbox Conversion mini HOWTO: Converting using IMAP</TITLE>
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<LINK HREF="Outlook-to-Unix-Mailbox-2.html" REL=previous>
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<LINK HREF="Outlook-to-Unix-Mailbox.html#toc3" REL=contents>
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</HEAD>
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<BODY>
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Next
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<A HREF="Outlook-to-Unix-Mailbox-2.html">Previous</A>
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<A HREF="Outlook-to-Unix-Mailbox.html#toc3">Contents</A>
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<HR>
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<H2><A NAME="s3">3. Converting using IMAP</A></H2>
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<H2><A NAME="ss3.1">3.1 Preparation</A>
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</H2>
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<P>First, be sure you want to do things this way. In particular, section
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2 explains how to use Netscape Mail under Windows to do the
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coversion. That's easier than doing it this way.
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<P>If you decide to do it this way, you need to make sure that your copy
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of Outlook can talk to IMAP servers. When I first wrote this HOWTO, I
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assumed that Outlook was Outlook was Outlook. Nope. If you are using
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Outlook in Corporate/Workgroups mode (which talks to Exchange) instead
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of Internet Mode (which talks to POP/IMAP servers), you'll have to
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change modes.
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<P>To test to see if you're OK, look at the Outlook "Tools" menu, and see
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if there is an "Accounts" item. If there is, you're OK, and you can go
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on to section 3.2. If there isn't, go find your towel, and keep reading.
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<P>Changing modes is not trivial, but a helpful reader (Matt Huyck)
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sent in the following instructions, which look dangerous, and
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which I have not tested:
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<P>Select "Options..." from the "Tools" menu, and then go to the "Mail
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Services" tab in the resulting Options dialog box. At the bottom of
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that tab there is a button labeled "Reconfigure Mail Support..."
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Hold your breath and then click it. A new window comes up with
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"Outlook 2000 Startup" in the title bar and an "E-mail Service
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Options" heading. There are two relevant radio buttons: "Internet
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Only" and "Corporate or Workgroup". Change over to "Internet Only"
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and click "Next >". You are then prompted with a very long message
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box which you should read carefully because you're about to make a
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significant (but reversible) change to the Exchange client
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configuration. If you haven't passed out already, you can stop
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holding your breath now. Although it doesn't explicitly say so, you
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will want to be sure you have a copy of the Microsoft Office install
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CD before you click "Yes". Click "Yes" and let Outlook do its thing
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for a few seconds until it has quit completely. Open up Outlook
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again. This is where you may be prompted for the install CD. After
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the re-configuration is complete you're ready to proceed with step
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3.2 of the HOWTO.
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<P>To get back to your original Outlook configuration, follow the same
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directions, but you'll obviously be clicking the *other* radio button.
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<P>One other thing is different if you've been using Exchange. As you
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point out at the end of section 3.4, "the original 'From ' line" is not
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preserved. For Exchange users, however, the comment "Fortunately you
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don't actually need that information" doesn't quite apply. The
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"From" header that's missing is the only one that contains the
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identity of the sender in messages that were sent on an internal
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Exchange server, i.e. messages that didn't pass through an Internet
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gateway anywhere. I have preserved my "From" headers by saving
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copies of my mail folders as text files through the "Import and
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Export..." command from the "File" menu. I plan to hack out some
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twisted Perl/Grep code that will re-insert those "From" headers into
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my Linux mbox files. If I get that to work I'll let you know.
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<P>
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<H2><A NAME="ss3.2">3.2 Install an IMAP server (temporarily!) on your Linux box</A>
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</H2>
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<P>Installing things varies from Linux distribution to distribution, so I
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will use RedHat 7.0 as an example. First you need to install the
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correct package, which generally is named "imap". or "uw-imap" or
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something like that:
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<BLOCKQUOTE><CODE>
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<PRE>
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cd /home/redhat-7.0-cd/RedHat/RPMS
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ls *imap*
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rpm -i imap*
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</PRE>
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</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<P>Actually, since I had a "workstation" install, I also had to install
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the xinetd package; rpm gave me an error which told me to do
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this. And, of course, it was on the second CD of RedHat 7.0. Debian
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users using "apt-get" don't have to worry about such issues.
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<P>
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<P>Next, we need to enable the imap server. On my Gnome-basekd desktop
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this is done using the graphical tool at Start -> System Settings ->
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Server Settings -> Services, or you can do it by hand. This is usually
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controlled by a line in the file <CODE>/etc/inetd.conf</CODE>:
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<BLOCKQUOTE><CODE>
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<PRE>
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#imap stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/sbin/imapd
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</PRE>
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</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<P>The above line is commented out; remove the leading # sign. Alternately,
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if your system uses xinetd, instead edit <CODE>/etc/xinetd.d/imap</CODE>
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and change "disable=yes" to "disable=no".
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<P>
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<P>Then restart inetd or xinetd by doing:
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<BLOCKQUOTE><CODE>
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<PRE>
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/etc/rc.d/init.d/inetd restart
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</PRE>
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</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<P>or
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<BLOCKQUOTE><CODE>
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<PRE>
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/etc/rc.d/init.d/xinetd restart
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</PRE>
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</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<P>If all else fails, reboot.
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<P>
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<P>You don't actually want to leave the IMAP server enabled for that
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long. This server runs as root and has had security bugs in the
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past. For this reason, you shouldn't leave it enabled unless you wish
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to use it permanently. We will disable this server in section 3.5.
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<P>
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<P>In order to connect Outlook to this IMAP server, you will need to know
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the name or IP address of the Linux box.
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<P>
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<H2><A NAME="ss3.3">3.3 Connect your Outlook client to the server</A>
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</H2>
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<P>In order to copy over all our email to the server, we need to tell
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your Outlook client about this new server. Select "Accounts..." from
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the "Tools" menu, and then "Add" a new account "Mail...". The
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important items are that the server uses IMAP to download email, that
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the incoming mail server is the name or IP address of your Linux box
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from section 3.2, and the username and password should be your username and
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password on the Linux box. (As usual, it's a bad idea to use the root
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account on Linux for this purpose.)
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<P>
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<P>Once you've hit "Finish", set this new account to be the default by
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highlighting it and clicking on "Set as Default". Outlook should
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connect to your IMAP server, and the name of your IMAP server should
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appear at the bottom of your folder list. Click on it; you should see
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an Inbox folder. (Note that if /var/mail/yourusername doesn't exist on
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your Linux box, you won't be able to drag-and-drop any messages into
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your INBOX... and the error message will be confusing. However, that's
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not what we're going to do.)
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<P>
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<H2><A NAME="ss3.4">3.4 Copy over all your email</A>
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</H2>
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<P>At this point you can drag and drop entire folders of email from
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Outlook onto the IMAP server name. This will copy the email, including
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all attachments, to the Linux box. Unfortunately it also immediately
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deletes it from Outlook. In order to copy items without deleting them,
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right-click on the folder name and select the "Copy" option. For the
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destination, pick your Linux server at the bottom of the list.
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<P>
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<P>
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<P>However, life isn't quite that simple. Outlook supports folders
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containing folders which also contain messages. Linux IMAP servers do
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not support that (at least those using Mailbox format); a folder is
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either a regular file containing messages, or a directory containing
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subdirectories and files. So if you have folders in Outlook with both
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messages and subfolders, you can't copy the entire tree over to the
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Linux IMAP server. Another incompatibility of the Linux IMAP server is
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that you have to tell it in advance if a new folder will contain
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subfolders or messages. You do this by appending a slash (<CODE>/</CODE>)
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to the folder name when you create it. This slash will disappear when
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the folder is created.
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<P>
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<P>So, in order to copy a tree of folders to the Linux IMAP server, first
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you need to create a replica of the structure of your existing folders
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on the Linux IMAP server. While you're doing this, note which of the
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existing folders contain both subfolders and messages. You will need
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to move these messages elsewhere. Once you have the overall tree
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created, then you can copy or move groups of folders to the Linux IMAP
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server.
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<P>
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<P>One final incompatibility to note is that the Linux IMAP server
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doesn't allow folders with slashes (/) in their name. You'll need to
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rename such folders before copying or moving them.
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<P>
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<P>On the Linux box, folders appear as files and directories in your home
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directory. The format of these files is the usual Unix mail format,
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which most Unix/Linux mail tools either use directly or can convert
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to/from. Files with attachments will have MIME attachments; there is
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also one extra message per folder which is a (useless) header.
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<P>
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<P>(One piece of data which doesn't get preserved is the original "From "
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line, which contains the envelope address of the email. Fortunately
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you don't actually need that information.)
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<P>
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<P>
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<P>An additional wrinkle applies regarding attachments. Microsoft
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sometimes bundles together several attachments into a ms-tnef
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attachment; TNEF stands for Transport Neutral Encapsulation
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Format. This attachment contains several mime-encoded attachments. I
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was lucky that my mail folders didn't contain any of these -- they
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seem to be created when people send you "Rich Text Format" email -- it
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contains two alternatives, one in plain text and the other a
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TNEF-encapsulated version of the message in rich text plus any
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attachments.
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<P>
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<P>
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<P>Fortunately, there are some ways to unpack TNEF attachments.
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One is the tnef project hosted on sourceforge, the other is
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ktnef, which is a part of KDE.
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<P>
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<H2><A NAME="ss3.5">3.5 Deinstall IMAP from your Linux box</A>
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</H2>
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<P>Once you've transferred all of your email, you will want to deinstall
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the IMAP server from your Linux box, for the security reasons
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mentioned earlier. This involves the same 2 steps you took to install
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the server:
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<OL>
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<LI> Remove the RPMs:
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<BLOCKQUOTE><CODE>
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<PRE>
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rpm -e imap
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</PRE>
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</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE>
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</LI>
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<LI> Remove the line in <CODE>/etc/inetd.conf</CODE> or <CODE>/etc/xinetd.d/imap</CODE></LI>
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<LI> Restart inetd or xinetd, or reboot.</LI>
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</OL>
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<P>
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<P>Voila! You have taken another step towards a Microsoft-free lifestyle.
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<P>
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<HR>
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Next
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<A HREF="Outlook-to-Unix-Mailbox-2.html">Previous</A>
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<A HREF="Outlook-to-Unix-Mailbox.html#toc3">Contents</A>
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</HTML>
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