I have a hosting for my client on a shared server (website, domain and mailboxes) and I want to change the provider and move everything to another server. Moving the website is as easy as copying the content and changing the DNS settings.
What about the mailboxes?
I don't have root access to the server, but I want to keep all the data in the mailboxes. They are using both POP3 and IMAP.
What's the best flow in this case, regarding that:
- clients have 10 computers using Thunderbird (clients are non thech-savvy, I'll need to update the settings if any, I don't have remote access to those machines)
- they are also using webmail access (roundcube)
- we want to keep all the data and minimum downtime (preferably that clients didn't notice any change in they daily work)
Once I change the DNS to the new servers, the mailboxes will be empty. How to keep the data from old mailboxes and have not to worry about any data loss?
Use a mailbox synchronization tool (for example imapsync) or a service (for example migrationwiz) and do a initial synchronization of all the mailboxes to the new server.
Then change the dns records over to the new box. After DNS change has propagated, do another delta-sync of all mailboxes to catch the changes that have been made to the old mailbox while the mailclients switched from the old to the new server.