All Kerio MailServer settings are independent of the operating system and are stored in two files placed in the directory where Kerio MailServer is installed:
Information about user accounts, groups and aliases. If the file is corrupt and Kerio MailServer is unable to read it, it can be replaced by the users.cfg.bak backup file. Simply rename the file to users.cfg.
All other configuration parameters. If the file is corrupt and Kerio MailServer is unable to read it, it can be replaced by the mailserver.cfg.bak backup file. Simply rename the file to mailserver.cfg.
Warning: On Mac OS X and Linux systems, files can be maintained only if the user is logged in as the root user.
Information on these two files are saved in the XML format. They can be therefore modified by hand or re-generated by your applications. Backups or transfers of these files can be easily performed by simple copying.
Before configuration transfer, we recommend to also backup the sslcert a license directories (stored in the directory where Kerio MailServer is installed by default). The license directory contains the license.key file with the Kerio MailServer license key. If you forget to make a copy of the backup, you can download the license key from Kerio Technologies product web. To download the license key, simply enter the product registration number on the https://secure.kerio.com/reg page. However, it is not recommended to use this procedure too often, because the number of license key downloads is limited. It is also necessary to make backups of the myspell folder if other than default dictionaries are used in Kerio WebMail (for details on this topic, see section 11.3 Language).
The sslcert directory contains an information about a SSL certificate currently in use. If you fail to backup this directory before the configuration transfer, you will not be able to run any of the secured services in the new installation. In such case, call the Kerio Technologies customer support (the contact information is listed in chapter 43.1 Contacts).
Warning: We recommend that Kerio MailServer Engine be stopped prior to any manipulation with the configuration files! Information contained within these files is loaded and saved only upon starting or stopping the MailServer. All changes to the configuration performed while the Engine is running are only stored in memory. Changes to configuration files performed while the Engine is running will be rewritten with the configuration stored in memory after the engine is stopped.
To use an archived backup configuration of Kerio MailServer (typically when transferring the application to another computer or after reinstallation of the operating system), follow these instructions:
Install Kerio MailServer on the computer (refer to chapter 2.4 Installation)
Stop the Kerio MailServer Engine
Copy the archived mailserver.cfg and users.cfg files (and optionally also the sslcert and license directories and files of the myspell directory) into the Kerio MailServer installation directory.
Run the Kerio MailServer Engine