How to backup and restore emails from one cyberpannel instance to another?

Hello,

I just have a simple question as I don’t really find any information on this subjet on internet :

How to backup and restore only emails from one cyberpannel instance to another one ?

Indeed, I am moving from Hetzner to Vultr (always with cyberpannel of course) but unfortunately I don’t know how to do it for emails without losing all the previous emails recieved in rainloop.

And there is no Export / Import options on rainloop

I know that there is already a small topic about it (How to Restore only email accounts from a backup file) but I don’t know where exactly to find the “vmail” directory that @shoaibkk is talking about.

Can you please help me on that?

It would be a very interresting video to make on youtube @usmannasir as I am sure it will help a lot of people. :slightly_smiling_face:

Thank you.

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/home/vmail

But the thing is that I don’t have any “vmail” in my “home” folder :

you need use console (CLI)
and work under console mode.
and do cp mv or else
and you can use norton commander like … called midnight commander

or you can buy add-on root file manager, the tools that will help you when you not understand CLI

or you can use 3rd parti client app like winscp then login use username root and password.

still… cyberpanel offering premium support to help you about this…

at least with cyberpanel free and alot of add on… (even premium)… we still get the best free control panel right ? (premium addon will updated with request by premium user… bug will solved after that)

Hi,

  1. Download WinSCP
  2. Connect to your first VPS using your username and password from your hosting provider
  3. Locate vmail directory (for example, on Centos7 it’s /home/vmail
  4. Download with drag and drop the folder you want to backup (e.g. /home/vmail/mywebsite)
  5. Connect to your second VPS using your username and password from your second hosting provider (where you want to load the backup to)
  6. Locate /home/vmail/mywebsite in the second VPS
  7. Upload with drag and drop the backup you downloaded in the step 4.
  8. Make sure all the directories have the same levels and names.
  9. Verify it worked by opening the Webmail Client (e.g. rainloop) on your new server and checking your inbox.

Regards!

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1 question… if you allow me

it will use same username password for email?
or we must create it and of course it will have different email password (if the email is not belongin to me)

step 1-9 not include about the email credential

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Nice question!

If I am not wrong, the passwords are stored in a database created by Dovecot (or Postfix).

So probably the passwords will be different. For example when you use imapsync, the mails are transfered but the passwords are different. So I suppose the same things happen with the manual backup from vmail directory.

In conclusion there is 4b step:
4.b) Create the new mail on your second VPS and set a new password (meaning just create the new email account from Cyberpanel as normal).

Thanks MyIDKaTePe for making this clear!

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yeap… you are correct (cmiiw too)

except you can decrypt the hash ?

no problem… i just hoping more people can love this cyberpanel

Hi @clickadmingr and @MyIDKaTePe , thank you for your time and help.

I will try using WinSCP as describe and I will get back to you.

Thank you my friends. :grinning:

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glad to help

i hope you find the solution…

actually cyberpanel has remote backup

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Yes but if I just want to backup and restore only the emails I don’t think that remote backup is the right feature to use in this case.

I believe that remote backup is a great feature when you want to migrate everything (website + emails).

But in this precise case the website is a brand new website so we just want to backup/restores the emails.

Hi @clickadmingr ,

I just have a question regarding WinSCP :

Do I have to create an FTP account in cyberpanel in order to connect to my first VPS using my username and password ?

I now that it’s probably a strange novice question. :blush:

Hi Adrian,

no worries, we all started from somewhere.

So, FTP is a protocol, which means that with an FTP account you can login to your server via FTP. An application that uses FTP is for example, Filezilla. FTP protocol is mainly for transfering files and it is not so secure.

SSH is another different protocol, with which you login to your server via an SSH account. An application that uses SSH, is for example WinSCP or PuTTY. SSH protocol is mainly for managing the server and it is more secure than FTP.

When you buy a VPS from a company, at least in South Europe, you only get an SSH account. With the SSH account and/or a Web Hosting Panel you can create as many FTP accounts you want by yourself, because for example you can create FTP accounts with permissions for each and every website on your server, to give to your clients.

But the SSH account remains only yours, and it usually a root account.

For our job here, to grab those backups you need to connect to your server via the SSH account you got on your email when you buyed the VPS. If you didnt get an email with SSH credentials, email your hosting provider, I am sure its somewhere there on your provider panel. The only reason you dont get an SSH account is if you have a Managed VPS. But I suppose since you installed cyberpanel yourself its not managed.

Hi @clickadmingr,

Wow ! Thank you very much for having taken the time to explain everything to me, now I understand. :grinning:

That’s ok, I finally managed to connect to my new VPS throught WinSCP and to see the “home” and “vmail” folders.

Now the next thing to do is to get the SSH credentials from the first VPS (which is indeed a managed VPS).

Thanks again. It’s a real pleasure to see that we can learn a lot of things here, with helpful members, on this wonderful Cyberpanel.

Thank you brother, It’s working properly.

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