User Guide for Mexico: Uniplex to Microsoft Exchange Conversion

Users are migrating from Uniplex Mail to Microsoft Exchange. Users want to retain their existing mail messages. They do not want to keep mail in their Uniplex format but like them fully integrated into their Exchange or Outlook mailboxes. MEXICO does this.

MEXICO stands for Mail Exchange Import and Conversion. It takes one or more Uniplex mailboxes and prepares them for import into Microsoft Exchange. It is fully compliant with the Microsoft Exchange Migration Wizard. It is also fully compliant with the Microsoft Source Extractor specification.

MEXICO transfers mail messages, preserving the message text, attachments, send and receive dates. MEXICO has an integrated message convertor – or it can be integrated with an external convertor.

MEXICO can also create user accounts direct from the mailboxes. This means that MEXICO can be used as a simple wizard driven interface for migrating your users from Unix to NT.

MEXICO provides these benefits:

• Automatic conversion of received mail
• Automatic conversion of archived mail
• Optional creation of user accounts at same time
• Fast embedded message conversion
• Optional external conversion facility for high quality conversion
• Transfers body text and attachments

This document is a technical overview that covers the following topics:

• Steps in Migrating Mail
• Running MEXICO from the command line
• MEXICO feature list and exceptions

Pre-requisites: MEXICO runs on your Unix computer(s). Where a port to your particular Unix computer is required you must have a standard C compiler. Disk space usage is less than 1MB. You will also need some means of transferring data from Unix to NT – such as NFS.

There are three basic steps in migrating from Uniplex mail to Microsoft Exchange.

1. Run MEXICO on Unix host to create migration files
2. Transfer migration files to NT host
3. Run Microsoft Mail Migration Wizard on NT host

You can operate MEXICO using Uniplex screen forms and menus or direct from the command line. MEXICO requires a list of users to migrate - there are tools provided to help you build the list. MEXICO then examines all the users mailboxes and creates files which comply with the Microsoft Source Extractor Specification.

These files then need to be transferred to the NT host, any file transfer can be used, including FTP and NFS mechanisms. The files are a mixture of plain text and binary types.

You can then run the Microsoft Mail Migration Wizard - which guides you through the steps involved. You can also run the MEXICO.BAT script that operates directly - although less flexible, this is faster and simpler.

You can run MEXICO from the Unix prompt. You must have access to read all users mailboxes, so you will probably need to run as "root" superuser ID.

Mexico -u user_list_file -o output_folder

-n -q -i -V

All arguments except -o and -u are optional.

The name of the file containing a list of user(s) to convert. The file contains records, one record per user, containing three fields: user's Unix ID, user's NT ID, user's full name. This file is described in more detail later.

The name of the folder in which the migration control files are to be created.

MEXICO by default will create user accounts for each mailbox. With this flag set no user accounts will be created. If an NT account already exists for the same name MEXICO will use this mailbox.

MEXICO by default displays its progress as individual messages are processed. With the "quiet" flag set only limited information is displayed.

MEXICO can use external file conversion utilities - this is the default. However MEXICO has an integral Uniplex to text convertor which runs very quickly. This is the recommended setting.

Prints the version number and stops.

MEXICO provides four simple Uniplex interfaces to the mail export functions:

1 - Export a single mailbox

2 - Export several mailboxes

3 - Create a batch list for many user conversion

4 - Export from a batch list

MEXICO - EXPORT SINGLE MAILBOX

Enter user login ID : [unixid_________________________]

Enter NT account id : [ntid___________________________]

Enter Full Name : [Full Name______________________]

Enter output folder name : [/tmp/mexico____________________]

Run in verbose mode? : [YES]

Create user account? : [YES]

Use fast conversion? : [YES]

Press: F1 to continue, F4 to abandon.

When converting a single user you are asked for the following user specific information:

User Login ID The users Unix login ID, this identifies both the user and their mailboxes

NT Account ID The users NT login ID, this may be the same as their Unix ID, or you may wish to create different login ID's on the NT host.

Full Name The users full name for the Exchange account NT machine.

The following items are export specific and are repeated on all the menu options:

Output folder Tells MEXICO where to output the several control files used for the export. (These files are covered in more detail below).

Verbose Mode Determines whether MEXICO displays information for every message and attachment to the console or only limited information.

Create user account Tells MEXICO whether to output account creation information. If the NT account already exists then MEXICO will use it, otherwise a new NT account will be created.

Fast Conversion MEXICO has an integral Uniplex to text convertor. It is recommended you use this option as it is very fast. If you select "NO" then MEXICO will call the shell script "mexiconv.sh". This script must be pre-configured for your external convertor.

When all details are correct you can press F1 to continue with the Mail Export. Once completed you must then proceed to transfer the files to the NT host and execute Mail Migration on NT.

MEXICO - EXPORT MULTIPLE MAILBOXES

Unix ID NT ID Full Name

[unixid____] [ntid______][Full Name______________________]

[unixid____] [ntid______][Full Name______________________]

[unixid____] [ntid______][Full Name______________________]

[unixid____] [ntid______][Full Name______________________]

[unixid____] [ntid______][Full Name______________________]

[unixid____] [ntid______][Full Name______________________]

[unixid____] [ntid______][Full Name______________________]

[unixid____] [ntid______][Full Name______________________]

[unixid____] [ntid______][Full Name______________________]

Enter output folder name : [/tmp/mexico____________________]

Run in verbose mode? : [YES]

Create user account? : [YES]

Use fast conversion? : [YES]

Press: F1 to continue, F4 to abandon.

Exporting several mailboxes at the same time operates in the same way as exporting a single mailbox. However in this case you may enter several mailboxes at one time. Otherwise all steps are the same.

To convert many users (MEXICO will handle 100's or 1,000's of users) you must first create a user list with the required information. This list is then used a control file by MEXICO for preparing a mass export.

For each user to convert MEXICO requires to know at a minimum the Unix login ID, you should probably also specify the NT ID and the users full name. This makes for better account and mailbox creation on the NT host.

This first stage describes how to create a list of users, then we will explain how to export mail from this list.

MEXICO - PREPARE USER LIST~

User account output file : [filename_______________________]

Enter login ID's : [logins_________________________]

(Leave blank to process all accounts)

Use passwd or alias : [/etc/passwd]

Press: F1 to continue, F4 to abandon

Output file You must specify the path for a filename containing the user list. This file will be overwritten if it already exists.

Login ID's You can manually specify individual Unix ID's and MEXICO will attempt to find the remaining information. If you leave this file blank then MEXICO will search for names and other information from /etc/passwd or uniplex.alias.

Use passwd? When set to /etc/passwd MEXICO will search and extract user ID's and other information from /etc/passwd. If set to uniplex.alias the MEXICO will attempt to find account information from the Uniplex control file.

Press F1 when ready and MEXICO will search for information. When it has completed its search it will automatically launch Uniplex to allow you to edit the user list.

# The file is structured with 1 record per line.

# There are three mandatory fields per line:

# 1) The Unix login id

# 2) The NT login id

# 3) The NT user mailbox name

#

# Lines starting with # are comments

#

sal:sal:Samuel Leonard

bec:bec:Benjamin Charles

ctm:ctm:Claire Melen

Depending on how much pre-existing information there is the /etc/passwd or Uniplex alias file you may find the user list is fully populated (as in the example above). However, it is not uncommon that the user list does not contain Full Names. It is strongly recommended that these are entered.

You can use Uniplex to edit this control file as you require. To remove user names either delete the line or append a '#' at the start of the line.

Note the three fields must be separated by semi-colons.

Once this file is ready, save the file and leave the Uniplex editor. You can now proceed to the next stage.

You will already have prepared a user list prior to running this final stage.

This option takes your user list and creates the necessary migration files from your user list.

Select user account list : [user.lst__________________]

Select output folder : [/tmp/mexico_______________]

Run in verbose mode? : [YES]

Create user accounts? : [YES]

Use fast conversion? : [YES]

Press: F1 to continue, F4 to abandon.

The user account list is the path for the file you have already created, all other fields are as described in single user export.

Enter the required information and press F1 to continue. When MEXICO has completed its export you are now ready to move to the next stage, transferring files.

MEXICO creates the following export control files as defined by the Microsoft Source Extractor Specification

mexico.pkl Packing List for Mail Migration

mesuser.pri User account details (optional)

mexmsg.pri Message control file

mesmsg.sec Message body text

You will need to transfer all four files to your NT host (or be able to access them directly from the NT host using NFS or SMB).

If you use an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program to transfer the files then you must take to transfer the files as "binary", transferring files in "ascii" mode may appear to import correctly but will in fact dump garbage into most mail messages.

The Exchange Mail Migration wizard will require you to run as Exchange Administrator. This is often the "administrator" account. Most NFS systems require special set-up for Administrator accounts to access Unix as "root". You may need to set special controls in your NFS package to handle this.

The Exchange Mail Migration Wizard can be found on the Exchange Server menu options on your Start Menu.

This is a step by step sequence through migrating the mail and comes with extensive help. The procedure is also fully documented in the Microsoft Exchange Administrators Guide.

The only information you require that relates to MEXICO is the name of the migration packing list. This file is called "mexico.pkl", it can be located anywhere on your NT file system, but must be in the same directory as the other mexico export control files described in "Transferring MEXICO Export Control Files" above.

During the migration Exchange displays a running status of users and messages created and processed. Note that the processed count can run well ahead of the completed count - do not worry if you the migration closes after several hundred messages processed only showing a few messages created - this is normal operation.

The Migration Wizard makes entries in the Event Log for start-up and shut-down. Any errors encountered will also be shown in the Event Log. You should check the Event Log after every migration run to ensure correct completion.

The file "mexiconv.sh" is the external Unix shell script called by MEXICO to perform external file conversion.

Only text or Uniplex files call this script, other files are treated as binary files and passed directly through to Exchange as attachments.

The script must accept two arguments, the first is the input file name, the second the output file name as specified by the MEXICO program. No error conditions are supported, it is up to the programmer preparing the conversion script to ensure a fall-back to some output in the event of error.

These two files can be used together to run the Microsoft Exchange Migration Wizard directly from the command prompt on NT. This method is much faster to setup and run than stepping through the Migration wizard.

These files are plain text and should only need to be altered to specify the full path of the migration export control files.

Utodos is a Unix program which converts Unix files to DOS format by appending Carriage Return/Line Feed pairs at the end of each line.

Is a Unix program that converts Uniplex word processing files to plain text. Most formatting is lost, including all print effects and most dot commands. This is not intended for the processing of quality Uniplex documents but to handle simple mail messages.

This external program uses the same conversion routine as the MEXICO integral convertor.

The tables below describe how MEXICO supports each of the different parts of a Uniplex mailbox. MEXICO exports the Uniplex users' incoming mail and archived mail.

Fully supported

Fully supported.

201 - Cannot open file :<filename>: for reading

A filename for a message or attachment in a users mailbox could not be opened for reading. Typical cause is bad permissions.

302 - Sorry, cannot create temp file :<filename>:

The temporary filename specified could not be opened. Check file space and permissions.

401 - Sorry, cannot open file :<filename>: for read

The message or attachment could not be opened for read - check for permissions.

402 - Sorry, cannot open file :<filename>: for read

The filename created by the conversion process could not be opened for read. This may indicate an error in the external convertor or an error regarding disk space or file permissions.

Centreline 2000 provide a range of software and services to help you integrate or migrate to Windows and NT BackOffice. These include document conversion, spreadsheet conversion, client/server mail and database conversion.

For PC and NT installations and networking we can provide a full design, supply, install and training service.

Centreline 2000 has been providing Uniplex and PC services for over 8 years and includes many household names and government organisations amongst our customers.

If you have any questions or would like further information then please do not hesitate to contact us.

Centreline 2000 Consulting Ltd

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PO Box 2000

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Worcs

WR10 1BR

01386 751076

info@c2000.com

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