Re: [Evolution] Moving settings between computers

[guenther <guenther rudersport de>]

On Wed, 2004-12-01 at 18:18 -0800, Dan Stromberg wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-12-01 at 23:05 +0100, guenther wrote:
> > > I have Evolution on my home computer with several (6+) accounts on it,
> > > and lots of offline folders, as well as some filters.  I'd like to
> > > transfer this information over to my work computer without having to
> > > re-add all the accounts and filters and settings manually, but can't
> > > seem to get it to work.  If I copy over my ~/.evolution directory and
> > > my ~/.gconf/apps/evolution directory to my work computer and run
> > > Evolution I still get the First-Run Assistant.
> >
> > You will need to stop Evolution backend tasks and the GConf daemon
> > before copying your data. On *both* machines (syncing the data to disk
> > on the source machine and not using old data on target machine):
> >
> > $ evolution --force-shutdown
> > $ gconftools-2 --shutdown
>
> This is a valuable tip... but... what are you supposed to do if you have
> to copy 10,000's of users from one NFS server to another, and you don't
> have access to all of the NFS clients, and no reliable way of getting in
> touch with all of the users?

Uhm, this question isn't Evolution nor GConf specific...

You are in trouble, sure. But you are always in trouble, when doing
this. Moving a lot of data and switching machines cannot be done, while
users are still accessing and modifying the data on the source machine.

You are trying to move $HOME directories for thousands of users? Then
you need to make sure, no user is modifying his data while moving.
Otherwise, he might end up with data loss. You are allowing the users to
sort mails using procmail? Oh, then your MTA is accessing data in $HOME
as well. Likewise for any other app...

Yes, "downtime" is a nasty word... ;-)

...guenther


-- 
char *t="\10pse\0r\0dtu\0  ghno\x4e\xc8\x79\xf4\xab\x51\x8a\x10\xf4\xf4\xc4";
main(){ char h,m=h=*t++,*x=t+2*h,c,i,l=*x,s=0; for (i=0;i<l;i++){ i%8? c<<=1:
(c=*++x); c&128 && (s+=h); if (!(h>>=1)||!t[s+h]){ putchar(t[s]);h=m;s=0; }}}