Tag Archives: Script

How-to import a Maildir++ folder to Kmail

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Let’s say you have a local copy of a mail folder you want to browse with Kmail. This folder is normally found on a dedicated mail server and you access it through the IMAP protocol. I was in this situation some days ago and I will tell you how I’ve done it.

Instinctively, I assumed that my folder was of the Maildir format, and Kmail local mails too. So I tried to copy my ~/Maildir folder from the mail server to my local machine (~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/mail/). And that was the result in Kmail:

kmail-no-sub-folders.png

It looks good but it’s not: there is no sub-folders !

After some googling, I found what was wrong: my ~/Maildir folder is not a Maildir, but a Maildir++ folder. This kind of folder is handle by popular IMAP MTA like qmail, Dovecot and courier-imap (which was used on the mail server where my ~/Maildir come from). There is some advantages of using the “++” flavor of Maildir over the classic one, like quotas and sub-folders. Unfortunately Kmail is not able to read the Maildir++ folder structure.

To fix this, I’ve created a tiny python script to migrate a Maildir++ folder to Kmail.

How-to use it ? Simply:

  1. Download it to your disk,
  2. Edit it and change the MAILDIR_SOURCE and KMAILDIR_DEST variables to match your local configuration,
  3. Give it execution privileges,
  4. Run it !

I advise you to try it first in a safe environment (like under a temporary user account). And don’t forget to backup everything before playing with it: because this script work for me doesn’t mean that it will work for you ! ;)

System backup script: no more endless lock

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I’ve just released a new version of my system-backup.py script.

The main update is about the lock file, which I implemented in the last version to keep the script to run twice (or more) in parallel. This is a nice feature to avoid overlapping processes that fight each other to use the same ressources. But in some extreme cases (reboot or power failure during backup, …), the lock file will remain and so will prevent the script to start (until you notice the problem and remove the lock file manually). This new version take care of this problem and is now able to remove the lock automatically if a timeout is reached. It also kill all remaining child processes.

Here is the detailed changelog:

  • Auto-kill the script if the backup process take to much time. Timeout can be defined via a constant.
  • Clean kill: track all child processes to kill them safely before removing the lock file.
  • Require newer versions of python (>= v2.4), rsync (>= v2.6.7) and rdiff-backup (>= v1.1.0).
  • Use --preserve-numerical-ids option when adding rdiff-backup increment.
  • Keep 15 increments by default instead of 20. This value can be easily changed thanks to a defined constant.
  • Remove deleted file first during mirroring and delete outdated increments before adding a new one to gain space. This strategy is safer for target disk with low remaining free space.
  • Tell rsync to print human-readable values.

System Backup on Unreliable Link thanks to rdiff-backup and rsync

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I’ve just write a brand new script called system-backup.py. It’s similar to my website-backup.py script but instead of website and MySQL databases, it is designed to backup systems of several machines. This script is based on an idea from the “Backup up on unreliable link” article from the official rdiff-backup wiki. It use rdiff-backup to keep the last 20 backups and rsync to speed-up the backup process.

I run this script to backup all the local machines within my LAN. I start the backup process everyday thanks to a cron entry similar to this one:

0 20 * * * root /root/system-backup.py >> /mnt/backup-disk/backup.log

If you need more information about the rsync part the script, please have a look to my previous Remote Backup with rsync article, which detail how-to setup key authentification with ssh.

Website Backup Script: MySQL dumps and SSH supported.

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Three months after the last version, here is a big update of my backup scripts for websites. The script was greatly improved and among new features, the most important is the support of backups over SSH and backups of MySQL databases.

Change log:

  • Each item of the user’s backup_list must specify the type property (FTP, FTPs, SSH, MySQLdump or MySQLdump+ssh).
  • The property previously known as site is now host.
  • File system structure changed: /ftp-mirror folders renamed to /mirror.
  • Add SSH backups.
  • The script is able to detect if a SSH connexion can be initiated without a password. This was designed for people who don’t like the idea of storing clear password in the script. Thanks to this feature, you can benefit public key authentication from OpenSSH.
  • Use of rsync whenever it’s possible for bandwidth efficiency.
  • FTP and FTPs (aka FTP over SSL) are now handled separately: this suppress the default fall-back to FTP if FTPs is not supported by the remote server. This is safer as it doesn’t let lftp make the decision for you to send your clear password on the net.
  • All ports are optionnal, no need to specify it you use default ports.
  • Add MySQL backups thanks to mysqldump.
  • Two mode of MySQL backups: through SSH or direct connection to server.
  • A particular database to backup can be specified. Else, all databases are backed up.
  • Much more detailed logs that include external command’s output.
  • Auto-detect the existence of required external tools and commands at launch.
  • Use pexpect lib to simulate user password input.
  • Run all external commands in english for consistency.
  • Check that the script is running in a posix environnement.
  • Fix bug related to directory creation.

If you were using a previous version of my backup script and want to use this updated version, take care of changes, especially the ones describes in the first 3 items of the change log above.

Script de reconnection automatique PPP

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Voici un petit script trivial en bash qui, couplé à cron, me permet de maintenir ma connexion internet 56kbps fournie par Free.fr (en attendant l’arrivée du modem ADSL):

#!/bin/bash
# Script de reconnection automatique

testconnect() {
  CONNECT=`ping -c 3 google.com | grep packets | cut -d' ' -f4`
}

doconnect() {
  logger -t reconnect Essai reconnection.
  /etc/init.d/internet restart
}

displayip() {
  IP=`/sbin/ifconfig | grep -A 1 ppp0 | grep inet | cut -d' ' -f12 | cut -d':' -f2`
  logger -t reconnect Adresse IP : "$IP"
}

logger -t reconnect Test connection.
testconnect
if [ "$CONNECT" = "0" ];
  then
    logger -t reconnect Connection perdue.
    doconnect
    testconnect
    if [ "$CONNECT" != "0" ];
      then
        logger -t reconnect Reconnection OK.
        displayip
      else
        logger -t reconnect Reconnection manquee.
    fi
  else
    logger -t reconnect Connection OK.
    displayip
fi

exit 0
# FIN