Mailbox restore with a twist

[petergwilson]

I've got an odd one. The client (before my time) implemented a six month e-mail retention policy. They then migrated some users from a 6.5 post office to a new v7 post office. These users now need some e-mails restored. Unfortunately the missing e-mails are from the original 6.5 post office. The restore is easy. TID 10094743 seems straightforward however, when I attempt to rebuild the restored post office the system keeps trying to rebuild the live version. How do I get access to the restored mailboxes in order to archive off the "missing" e-mails.

Ideally I would do this in a totally seperate environment (VMWare netware server with groupwise and a workstation to run consoleone). That isn't an option here.

 

[goombawaho]

See if this helps:
4. From ConsoleOne in the GroupWise View, right click the Post Office and choose GroupWise Utilities | System Maintenance | Rebuild Database. After hitting the OK button, ConsoleOne will prompt for the path. Be default, it will read the UNC Path setting from when it was on the live system. Change the UNC path to the folder where the old post office has been restored.

From this document

https://secure-support.novell.com/KanisaPlatform/Publishing/197/3373106_f.SAL_Public.html

 

[petergwilson]

Thanks for the quick reply but, as I said, that's where the problem starts. No matter what you put into the database location, the rebuild will try to work on the live post office, not the restored one. I have read that this is a known issue and was hoping someone knew of a workaround.

 

[goombawaho]

Have you tried using the Restore Area approach instead??

http://www.novell.com/documentation...cumentation/gw65/gw65_admin/data/abcggai.html

A little tip - if you make the post office restore folder name longer than 8 characters, it won't allow the users to restore mail items into their mailboxes from the restore area. If you want them to be able to restore, make sure the folder name is 8 characters or less.

I used that trick to allow users to view their purged e-mails, but not restore them into their live mailbox, thus thwarting the retention rules.

 

[petergwilson]

The users are now on a different post office to the one they were on when the backup was taken. The restore area method doesn't work for this scenario (I use the restore area method for other users who haven't been migrated).

Post Office restore folder does stick to the DOS naming conventions. I know about that trick and it is a good one.

It's looking like I will have to un-migrate the users, use the restore area method then re-migrate them. Pity I can't have my own server (I only need an external USB caddy with a 500Gb disc and VMWare workstation but they won't pay for it).

Thanks for the replies.

 

[goombawaho]

Before you do all that work, post in the novell forums and someone should have an insight as to solving your rebuild problem.

http://support.novell.com/forums/2gw.html

 

[petergwilson]

OK Fixed it. Local issue with GWCheck not removing the password on the restored mailbox correctly and someone else kept resetting the access mode back to client server only. Problems with me (the contractor) having to sit in a different room from the rest of the third line staff. They keep interfering with my fault calls. Arrrrggggghhhhh.

 

[goombawaho]

too many finger in pie - not fun.