VMS Migration for the Impatient

Migrate from VMS to UNIX without reading manuals:

Move your VMS mail to UNIX ; log into your Unix host :

       setup mh
       fvms2mh -vms fnalv1

Move your files from VMS to Unix ; log into your Unix host and :

       mkdir vms
       rcp -r fnalv1:'[...]*.*' vms

OK, what's the catch ?

The title of the document is deliberately misleading. You must have selected a Unix host to which you will copy your mail and other files. On the FNALU cluster, use the fdei01 or fsgi02 systems, which each have more than 10 times the capacity of the default fibi01. You must have learned to log in to Unix, edit and manage your files, and must have selected a mail reader (presumed to be mh, exmh or pine).

This guide should work for must users. If you have problems, you should read the full documentation contained in the man pages and in the Unix at Fermilab document. Attend one of the Mail migration seminars. The helpdesk (x2345) can help get you personalized assistance if necessary.
You must have RCP access from your UNIX to your VMS account. This involves, under your VMS account :
- Creating a SYS$LOGIN:.RHOSTS file with a line for each UNIX host that should have automatic access to your VMS account. It might take several minutes for a recently modified .RHOSTS file to take effect. Do not use the generic name FNALU. For example:
```
       fdei01.fnal.gov
       fibi01.fnal.gov
       fsgi01.fnal.gov
       fsgi02.fnal.gov 
       fsui01.fnal.gov
```
- Making sure your SYS$LOGIN:LOGIN.COM does not print anything out.
  To ensure this, put the following as the first line of LOGIN.COM:
  $ IF ( F$MODE() .EQS. "OTHER" ) THEN EXIT ! 'F$VERIFY(0)
For the mail copy, be sure you are using mailtools v2_2 or later, as installed on the FNALU nodes and most other public nodes at Fermilab. Earlier mailtools versions do not support the fvms2mh command name described here, and may have quota and cleanup problems.
- To see whether mailtools v2_2 is current, type
```
 ups list -a mailtools 
```
- To select v2_2 if it is not 'current', type
```
setup mailtools v2_2 
```
If you use PINE, go to PINE's SETUP CONFIGURATION menu and add #mh/[] to the default mail/[] value for folder-collections. There are many other options available. A few are particularly desireable. Your configuration list should include the following:
```
user-domain              = fnal.gov
folder-collections       = mail/[]
                           #mh/[]
           [X]  enable-aggregate-command-set
           [X]  enable-alternate-editor-cmd
           [X]  quell-user-lookup-in-passwd-file
```
You can move entire folders between the pine and MH collections as follows:
- Go to the folder to be moved, in pine
- Type ';' for the Select command, then 'A' for all.
- Type 'A' for the Action command, then 'S' for Save
- Give the destination folder name, as a simple name for a pine folder or as #mh/name for an MH folder
Do the file copy exactly as shown. Changing any of the wild-carding is likely to do nasty things, like moving the oldest rather than most recent version of each file, or dumping everything into a single directory.
You can take somewhat smaller steps:
1. Forward your current new mail to UNIX.
2. Use EXMH or Pine to read your new mail on UNIX for a while.
3. When you are comfortable with UNIX mail, move your old VMS mail to UNIX as described above.
4. When you are confident that you have a good UNIX copy, back up and delete all your old VMS mail.
5. Copy the rest of your VMS files to UNIX.