Thunderbird/Enterprise/Migration

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Warning: This is Draft

This is draft of Migration Guide for corporate users. Initial draft is a brief summary of knowledge about auto-sync/offline-use settings obtained in the bug 562589 (as of 2010/05/06).

Background

This Migration Guide makes the following assumptions and lists potential options to avoid problems.

• Typical corporate environment:
  • IMAP accounts and folders.
  • High mail data volume.
  • Use of Roaming Profile or something similar is common, because flexibility of roaming and ease of backup/recovery are frequent requirements.

  The above requirements may conflict with TB 3's "Gloda is enabled by default upon upgrade" and "auto-sync of all IMAP folders is enabled by default upon upgrade" in some places.

• For a variety of reasons, the corporate environment typically mass upgrades its users from prior versions. The goals of such an an upgrade may be:
  • To resolve bugs that exist in the prior version, eg. Thunderbird 2.
  • To gain improvements in stability and reliability.
  • To gain improvements in performance.
  • To gain improvements in usability without breaking existing features.
  • To minimize or make user training as simple as possible.
  • To minimize manpower needed to support the new, updated application.

Migration Guide (Thunderbird 2 To Thunderbird 3.0)

• Big changes in Thunderbird 3.0:
  • Gloda (Global Search and Indexer). Enabled by default.
  • Auto-sync of IMAP folders. Enabled by default.
  • Per-folder "offline use" setting of all IMAP folders is changed to "offline use=On" by default upon migration.
  • "Smart Folders" is default folder pane view, even if "All Folders" is user's choice in Thunderbird 3.

  Note, not all settings for above big changes are well documented yet.

• As mass upgrade in corporate environment, similarity to Thunderbird 2 should be kept as many places as possible upon migration. Preparation to use new inovative features of Thunderbird 3 should be separated from migration to Thunderbird 3.

• This guide is for people who has to manage mass upgrade in corporate environment.

Disable Migration Assistant

Because mass upgrade, migration option change by user via Migration Assistant should be prohibited. To disable dialog by Migration Assistant:

lockPref("mailnews.ui.show.migration.on.upgrade",false);

Disable Gloda(Global Search and Indexer)

Gloda is new feature of Thunderbird 3.0 and is enabled by default. Corporate users usually doesn't want very different behaviour from Thunderbird 2. Disable Gloda before migration.

But how? Is it possible? Enhancement is needed?

If Gloda is required in your environment, enable Gloda after normal completion of migration. As indexing of whole mail data is required for Gloda search(Global Search), initial indexing of all mail data by Gloda takes long if you have large volume of mail data. "When start to use Gloda" should be carefully decided if mail data volume is large.

Disable Auto-sync, Keep per folder "offline use" setting

Auto-sync of IMAP folders is enabled by default for all IMAP accounts. And per folder "offline use" setting of all IMAP folders is set to "offline use=ON" by default upon first use of Tb 3.

1. Disable auto-sync (one of next two, or both for fail safe)
   • lockPref("mail.server.default.autosync_offline_stores", false);
   • lockPref("mail.server." + serverFromAccount + ".autosync_offline_stores", false);
2. Disable per folder "offline use" setting change upon migration
   • lockPref("mail.server." + serverFromAccount + ".offline_download", false);

Hints&Tips

• mail.server.serverX.offline_download (default=true)
  • When an IMAP folder is created or subscribed, set offline use=off if false, set offline use=on if true. i.e. This setting is for default of offline use=on/off of an IMAP folder.
  • It's enhanced by bug 562589, and next meaning is added. This enhancement is already landed on Tb3.1pre and Tb3.2pre, and the enhancement has been landed on Tb 3.0.5pre today(2010/5/10).
    • Upon first use of Tb 3, if serverX.offline_download=false is set before upgrade, IMAP folder's "offline use" is not touched by Migration code of Tb 3 .
• Current behaviour of UI for auto-sync setting:
  • Unchecked->Checked
    1. Set mail.server.serverX.offline_download=true
    2. Set offline use=on of all folders of the IMAP account
  • Checked->Unchecked
    1. Set mail.server.serverX.offline_download=false
    2. Set offline use=off of all folders of the IMAP account
• Gloda and auto-sync/offline-use are possibly independent, althoug relevant.
  • "Download Now" button downloads mail to offline-use regardless of offline-use=On/Off.
  • "Download Now" button seems to be intercepted and discarded if auto-sync is enabled and offline-use=On. It looks due to already started schedule based automatic downloading.
  • Auto-sync automatically downloads mail data to offline-store if auto-sync is enabled and if offline-use=On is set in an IMAP folder.
  • "Work Offline" automatcally downloads mail data to offline-store automatically, if per folder offline-use=On is set in an IMAP folder.
  • Gloda indexes mail data in offline-store, if mail data is saved in offline-store, perhaps regardless of auto-sync is enabled/disabled and offline-use=On/Off and Working Online/Working Offline.

Change back folder pane view to "All Folders" from "Smart Folders"

View of folder pane is changed to "Smart Folders" by default. As ordinal use is "All Folders", change to "All Folders" should be recommended to users, in order to avoid unwanted questions to Help Center.

Can "forcing Smart Folders view" upon migration be stopped? How? Is it possible? Enhancement is needed? Tb 3.1 won't force "Smart Folders" view(or renamed one) upon upgrade?

Considerations

Account definition by autoconfig

As only "autoconfig" is availabe for account definition, setups for autoconfig should be carefully done, in order to avoid user's confusions due to unexpected behaior of autoconfig or failure during autoconfig, if account definition by user himself is permitted.

IMAP folder file location

Because default of IMAP folder file location is profile directory, big offline-store file produces problem of "too big roaming profile", if Roaming Profile is used. Even if Roaming Profile is not used, performance problem may arise, if profile is located on network resource or if MS Win's Offline File(CSC) is used for the big offline-store file.

In such cases, you need to choose one of next.

1. When Gloda is mandatory for IMAP mail data
   • Locate mail directory for IMAP account at location with which remote/network access won't happen(e.g. "Local Settings" of MS Win)
   • Enable auto-sync, and set offline use=on of IMAP folders.
   • Accept download of all mails to any PC which uses the IMAP account.
   • Accept per PC thread pane column setting of the IMAP accout.

     As thread pane column setting is currently saved in .msf file, and as you selected folder location other than profile directory, data in .msf can not be shared among PCs, even when you use Roaming Profile.

2. When Gloda is not needed for IMAP mail data
   • Locate IMAP folder file at any place you want.
   • Disable auto-sync, and/or set offline use=off of all IMAP folders.

     As new feature of "Disk Cache for mail in IMAP folder of offline-use=off" is added to Tb 3, mail data of viewed mail is held in far larger Disk Cache than very small memory cache of Thunderbird 2. So, frequency of problem like "repeatedly downloaded big attachment data" is reduced very much compared to Thunderbird 2.

As Gloda is first solution of problem of Bug 383895 (slowness in body text search of local mail data), and as many IMAP servers have excellent body text search functionality, consider utilizing of online search first for IMAP mail data. If online search is usable, enabling of auto-sync/offline-use merely for Gloda can be avoided.

Online search of IMAP folder

There is known problem in online search currently.

• Bug 546925 "Run search on server" of Edit/Find/Search Messages doesn't work.

Until the bug will be fixed, you need to use Quick Search or Virtual Folder(Saved Search folder) for online search.

Search, auto-sync, offline-use, and "Smart Folders"

If IMAP folder of offline-use=off, full text search by Gloda won't work because of offline-use=off.

And, if not all mails of IMAP folder of offline-use=on is downloaded into local offline-store file because of your setting for offline-store file size limitation, Gloda can't find not-downloaded mails of the IMAP folder.

And, as "Smart Folder" is internally Virtual Folder(Saved Search Folder), a "Smart Folder" can be Virtual Folder with multiple search target folders in mixture of local mail folders, IMAP folders of offline-use=on(all mails are sync'ed), IMAP folders of offline-use=on(not all mails are sync'ed), and IMAP folders of offline-use=off.

Never open bug at bugzilla.mozilla.org for "Search can't find my mail!" without sufficient checking of "what mail at what kind of folder is not hit by what kind of search at where", please.

Migration Guide (Thunderbird 2 To Thunderbird 3.1)

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Migration Guide (Thunderbird 3.0 To Thunderbird 3.1)

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