Migration Support FAQ
Will users be able to return to Geckomail if necessary?
Cyrus/Geckomail is being retired. Cyrus/Geckomail users will need to move to one of the three service choices: DavisMail, uConnect Cloud, or uConnect Local.
Is it correct to state that users who are on uConnect Local will now have a choice of moving to DavisMail or Office 365 (uConnect Cloud), or maintaining the status quo with an extra fee?
Yes,departments have a choice of moving to DavisMail, uConnect Cloud, or just staying with the current uConnect for an extra fee. We discourage allowing individual choices. However, if a department decides to allow individual choice, we will support that decision.
What might make departments choose to stay with on premise uConnect?
The only functional advantage to on premise uConnect would be if the department uses public folders extensively. Office 365 does not support public folders well so an on premise solution may be preferable. Additionally, both DavisMail and uConnect Cloud are NOT compliant with ITAR requirements. Users requiring ITAR compliance may need to remain with uConnect Local.
Cyrus will be retired at some point. When new faculty or researchers come on board and their email address is created, what will be the default mail server for their @ucdavis.edu address?
The Email Committee has recommended using O365 as the initialservice for when an email account is initially created for new faculty, researchers, and staff. We are in process of communicating with campus to gather further feedback.
Will migration from uConnect to Office365 be done by local IT staff or will it happen centrally?Who will handle the migration from Cyrus to uConnect or Gmail?
We are currently working with departments to schedule moves. Our overall plan is for local IT staff to be able to schedule uConnect to O365 moves but plan to offer additional support for departments needing help or resources. We are testing the IMAP Cyrus to uConnect/Gmail migration tools and plan to follow the same model – local IT staff supported by IET.
My department has decided to use uConnect Cloud/Office 365. What are the specific migration instructions?
Specific instructions are located here:
How do I get started with the migration for my department?To get started, we schedule a meeting to discuss any particulars for your users and review how to approach your migration. For more information, please contact the Project Manager, Mark Thonen, at .
Are there training materials or resources to hand out to staff on what changes to expect?
Yes. We have some migration information in draft emails and a flier you can place on users’ workstations. There are additional training resources available in the Support Center at Look for the Support Center down the right side of each web page.
Explain the Microsoft UPN/SMTP Stamping technical issue that impacts users requiring auConnect mailbox and a non-uConnect mailbox. What is the fix?
The UPN (user principal name)/SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol) technical issue results from Microsoft stamping our UPN value as an SMTP address in Office 365, causing mail delivery issues. The issue is being addressed via a policy change, as follows:
a. Any uConnect mailbox created to utilize the primary identity of a user for authentication and configuration must have their primary campus internet messaging address routed to uConnect. Any secondary uConnect mailbox must have a secondary identity created for authentication to the mailbox.
b. If a secondary uConnect mailbox is necessary, a secondary identity to be utilized for authentication to the secondary mailbox can be created in one of two ways:
i. If an @ucdavis.eduaddress is required, a departmental account can be created through computing accounts to facilitate the creation of a departmental login and internet messaging address creation in theucdavis.edunamespace.
ii. If any other uConnect accepted domain address is necessary, an administrator can create a user and a mailbox for that user in their Organizational Unit within theou.ad3.ucdavis.edudomain and associate the internet messaging address and Exchange attributes with that user ID.
c. In the event that a privileged user insists on having a secondary uConnect mailbox associated with their primary user ID, all mail delivered to the secondary mailbox will be forwarded to that user’s internet messaging routing address as published in campus LDAP to ensure proper mail delivery.
Will migration to the new system affect users of pine/alpine/mutt?
These are not programs that IT Expresssupports. These are Unix, text-only email programs. The pine program is out of cyber-security compliance and users should upgrade to alpine or change to mutt.uConnect Cloud supports IMAP connections, so there shouldn’t be any problems with using alpine or mutt.
How will the migration be handled for users with large mail boxes?
Office 365 supports mailboxes up to 50GB, DavisMail up to 30GB. Migrationscan run overnight or, if necessary, can run over a weekend. Messages/attachments are limited to 25MB in both DavisMail and uConnect Cloud. The migration process is designed to move messages larger than 25MB. However, once migrated user will not be able to forward those messages. Users are encouraged to move large email attachments to other file storage, such as OneDrive, Google Drive or Box.