Migrate from iRedMail to iRedMail Enterprise Edition

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Migrate from iRedMail to iRedMail Enterprise Edition

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iRedMail Team can help migrate your iRedMail server, feel free to Contact Us.

Summary

iRedMail Enterprise Edition offers deployment, one-click upgrade and technical support for your iRedMail servers, it's very easy to keep your server up to date with the ease to use web UI, and get issues solved by iRedMail Team quickly.

For more details about iRedMail Enterprise Edition, please check our website.

Requirements

A working iRedMail server which was deployed with or upgraded to the latest iRedMail release.
Your iRedMail server must be running one of supported Linux/OpenBSD distribution releases:

Warning

WARNING: Old Linux/BSD distribution releases are still supported but will be dropped shortly, it's NOT recommended to deploy new iRedMail server with old Linux/BSD distribution releases.
- Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, 20.04 LTS, 22.04 LTS, 24.04 LTS
- Debian 10, 11, 12 (recommended)
- CentOS 7, 8 (NOT RECOMMENDED FOR NEW SERVER), 9 (recommended)
- CentOS Stream 8, 9 (recommended)
- Rocky Linux 8, 9 (recommended)
- AlmaLinux 8, 9 (recommended)
- OpenBSD 7.5

Unfortunately, FreeBSD is not supported by iRedMail Enterprise Edition.

Backup first

Please backup all important data before preparing the migration, including but not limtied to:

All SQL/LDAP databases.

iRedMail Enterprise Edition will use existing SQL/LDAP databases, no data corruption is expected.
All config files under /etc directory.

After moved to iRedMail Enterprise Edition, you should place all your custom settings in files under /opt/iredmail/custom/<software>/.

MySQL backend: Remove MySQL (not MariaDB) packages

Attention

This is not necessary if you're running MariaDB backend.
If you're replacing MySQL by MariaDB on Ubuntu 18.04, please disable apparmor service before removing MySQL packages. Check this tutorial for known issue and solutions. Also related bug report in Ubuntu LaunchPad.

iRedMail Enterprise Edition installs MariaDB instead of MySQL, if you're running MySQL instead of MariaDB, you need to:

Backup all databases
Remove mysql packages
Restore backup SQL files after iRedMail Enterprise Edition installation

Create required files used by iRedMail Enterprise Edition

iRedMail Enterprise Edition store SQL/LDAP passwords under /root/.iredmail/kv/ on your server. Please create required files under /root/.iredmail/kv/ with correct passwords manually, each file should contain only one line, passwords must be in plain text, not the hashed one.

Attention

You can find all info in the iRedMail.tips file under iRedMail installation directory, for example, /root/iRedMail-0.9.9/iRedMail.tips. If you don't have this file anymore, you can still find them in other config files.

Backend	File Name	Comment	Value could be found in file
LDAP, MySQL	`sql_user_root`	MySQL root password.	`/root/.my.cnf`
PostgreSQL	`sql_user_postgres` (Linux) `sql_user__postgresql` (OpenBSD)	PostgreSQL root password.	`/var/lib/pgsql/.pgpass` (CentOS), or `/var/lib/postgresql/.pgpass` (Debian/Ubuntu), `/var/postgresql/.pgpass` (OpenBSD)
LDAP	`ldap_root_password`	Password of LDAP root dn (cn=Manager,dc=xx,dc=xx)
LDAP	`ldap_vmail_password`	Password of LDAP dn `cn=vmail,dc=xx,dc=xx`	`/etc/postfix/ldap/*.cf`
LDAP	`ldap_vmailadmin_password`	Password of LDAP dn `cn=vmailadmin,dc=xx,dc=xx`	`/opt/www/iredadmin/settings.py`
MySQL, PostgreSQL	`sql_user_vmail`	Password of SQL user `vmail`	`/etc/postfix/mysql/.cf` or `/etc/postfix/pgsql/.cf`
MySQL, PostgreSQL	`sql_user_vmailadmin`	Password of SQL user `vmailadmin`	`/opt/www/iredadmin/settings.py`
ALL	`sql_user_amavisd`	Password of SQL user `amavisd`	`/etc/amavisd/amavisd.conf` (Linux/OpenBSD) `/etc/amavis/conf.d/50-user` (Debian/Ubuntu)
ALL	`sql_user_sa_bayes`	Password of SQL user `sa_bayes`. If you didn't integrate SpamAssassin with SQL database, it's ok to not create this file.	`/etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf`
ALL	`sql_user_iredadmin`	Password of SQL user `iredadmin`	`/opt/www/iredadmin/settings.py`
ALL	`sql_user_iredapd`	Password of SQL user `iredapd`	`/opt/iredapd/settings.py`
ALL	`sql_user_roundcube`	Password of SQL user `roundcube`	`/root/.my.cnf-roundcube` or `/opt/www/roundcubemail/config/config.inc.php`
ALL	`sql_user_sogo`	Password of SQL user `sogo`. If you didn't install SOGo, it's ok to not create this file.	`/etc/sogo/sogo.conf`
ALL	`sql_user_netdata`	Password of SQL user `netdata`. If you didn't install netdata, it's ok to not create this file.	`/root/.my.cnf-netdata` or `/opt/netdata/etc/netdata/my.cnf`
ALL	`sql_user_fail2ban`	Password of SQL user `fail2ban`. If you didn't integrate Fail2ban with SQL server, it's ok to not create this file.	`/root/.my.cnf-fail2ban` (OpenLDAP or MariaDB backends), or `/var/lib/pgsql/.pgpass` (CentOS), or `/var/lib/postgresql/.pgpass` (Debian/Ubuntu), `/var/postgresql/.pgpass` (OpenBSD)
ALL	`iredapd_srs_secret`	The secret string used to sign SRS. It's ok if not present.	`/opt/iredapd/settings.py`, parameter `srs_secrets =`.
ALL	`sogo_sieve_master_password`	The Dovecot master user used by SOGo. It's ok if not present.	`/etc/sogo/sieve.cred`.
ALL	`roundcube_des_key`	The DES key used by Roundcube to encrypt the session.	`/opt/www/roundcubemail/config/config.inc.php`, parameter `$config['des_key'] =`.
ALL	`mlmmjadmin_api_token`	API token for authentication.	`/opt/mlmmjadmin/settings.py`, parameter `api_auth_tokens =`.
ALL	`first_domain_admin_password`	Password of the mail user `postmaster@<your-domain.com>`.	`your-domain.com` is the first mail domain name you (are going to) set in mail server profile page on iRedMail Enterprise Edition, you can find it in mail server profile page, under tab `Settings`.

Copy files to new locations

iRedMail Enterprise Edition stores SSL cert/key files under /opt/iredmail/ssl/, you need to either copy or (symbol) link existing ssl cert/key to this directory with correct files names,

/opt/iredmail/ssl/key.pem: private key
/opt/iredmail/ssl/cert.pem: certificate
/opt/iredmail/ssl/combined.pem: full chain

Split custom settings

iRedMail Enterprise Edition maintains the core config files, and each time you perform full deployment or upgrade, these core config files will be re-generated, all your custom config files will be lost. So it's very important to not touch these core config files and just store your custom settings in pre-defined files under /opt/iredmail/custom/<software>/.

Postfix

Files under /etc/postfix/:
- aliases
- body_checks.pcre
- command_filter.pcre
- header_checks.pcre
- helo_access.pcre
- postscreen_access.cidr
- postscreen_dnsbl_reply.texthash
- rdns_access.pcre
- sender_access.pcre
- smtp_tls_policy
- transport
Please copy your custom settings from above files to the files with same names under /opt/iredmail/custom/postfix/. For example:
- From /etc/postfix/aliases to /opt/iredmail/custom/postfix/aliases.
- From /etc/postfix/body_checks.pcre to /opt/iredmail/custom/postfix/body_checks.pcre.
- From /etc/postfix/command_filter.pcre to /opt/iredmail/custom/postfix/command_filter.pcre.
You need to create directory /opt/iredmail/custom/postfix/ and the files if they don't exist, iRedMail Enterprise Edition will set correct owner/group and permission for them during deployment.

If you're lazy and don't want to check files one by one, it's ok to simply copy these files from /etc/postfix/ to /opt/iredmail/custom/postfix/ directly, and (optionally) remove non-custom settings later.
/etc/postfix/main.cf and /etc/postfix/master.cf

Postfix doesn't support include directive to load extra config files, so if you have custom settings in these 2 files, you have to create shell script file /opt/iredmail/custom/postfix/custom.sh to update them with postconf command during iRedMail Enterprise Edition deployment or upgrade. For more details, please check our Best Practice tutorial.

Amavisd

Copy DKIM keys from /var/lib/dkim/ to /opt/iredmail/custom/amavisd/dkim/.
Move all dkim_key(...) parameters from Amavisd config file to /opt/iredmail/custom/amavisd/amavisd.conf:
- RHEL/CentOS: /etc/amavisd/amavisd.conf
- Debian/Ubuntu: /etc/amavis/conf.d/50-user
- OpenBSD: /etc/amavisd.conf
- FreeBSD: /usr/local/etc/amavisd.conf
Attention

Please make sure no duplicate dkim_key(...) parameters, otherwise Amavisd will fail to start.

SpamAssassin

Split custom settings from /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf to /opt/iredmail/custom/spamassassin/custom.cf.

If you have whitelisted IP addresses/networks listed in Postfix config file /etc/postfix/main.cf, parameter mynetworks =, you may want to whitelist them to avoid spam/virus scanning in /opt/iredmail/custom/spamassassin/custom.cf too. For example:

trusted_networks 192.168.0.1 172.16.0.0/8

Roundcube Webmail

Copy custom settings from /opt/www/roundcubemail/config/config.inc.php to /opt/iredmail/custom/roundcube/config/custom.inc.php.
Copy third-party plugins from /opt/www/roundcubemail/plugins/ to /opt/iredmail/custom/roundcube/plugins/. iRedMail Enterprise Edition will create symbol link for them automatically.
Copy third-party or custom skins from /opt/www/roundcubemail/skins/ to /opt/iredmail/custom/roundcube/skins/. iRedMail Enterprise Edition will create symbol link for them automatically.

iRedAPD

Copy custom settings from /opt/iredapd/settings.py to /opt/iredmail/custom/iredapd/settings.py (this file will be linked back to /opt/iredapd/custom_settings.py).

If you have whitelisted IP addresses/networks listed in Postfix config file /etc/postfix/main.cf, parameter mynetworks =, you may want to whitelist them to avoid greylisting or other access control in /opt/iredmail/custom/iredapd/settings.py too. For example:

MYNEWTORKS = ['192.168.0.1', '172.16.0.0/8']

iRedAdmin(-Pro)

There's no iRedAdmin(-Pro) with iRedMail Enterprise Edition since it offers same (actually, more) features as iRedAdmin(-Pro).

Run the full deployment as migration

Please follow our tutorial Install iRedMail Enterprise Edition to install it.

Post-migration tasks

Remove duplicate cron jobs

iRedMail Enterprise Edition adds required cron jobs for root and sogo users, but it cannot detect and remove old duplicate jobs, please check cron jobs manually and remove duplicate old ones.