Import from Rocket.Chat
You can import your current workspace into a Zulip organization. It's a great
way to preserve your workspace history when you migrate to Zulip, and to make
the transition easy for the members of your organization.
The import will include your organization's:
- Name
- Message history, including attachments and emoji reactions
- Users, including names, emails, roles, and teams
- Channels, including discussions and all user subscriptions
- Custom emoji
Import process overview
To import your Rocket.Chat organization into Zulip, you will need to take the
following steps, which are described in more detail below:
- Instructions for all platforms
Import your organization from Rocket.Chat into Zulip
Export your Rocket.Chat data
Rocket.Chat does not provide an official data export feature, so the Zulip
import tool works by importing data from a Rocket.Chat database dump.
If you're self-hosting your Rocket.Chat instance, you can create a
database dump using the mongodump utility. Make sure your Rocket.Chat
server is NOT shut down while creating database dump using mongodump.
If your organization is hosted on Rocket.Chat Cloud or another hosting
provider that doesn't provide you with database access, you will need
to request a database dump by contacting their
support.
In either case, you should end up with a directory containing many
.bson files.
Import your data into Zulip
To start using Zulip, you will need to choose between Zulip Cloud and
self-hosting Zulip. For a simple managed solution, with no setup or maintenance
overhead, you can sign up for Zulip Cloud with just a few clicks.
Alternatively, you can self-host your Zulip organization. See
here to learn more.
You can only import a workspace as a new Zulip organization. Your imported
message history cannot be added into an existing Zulip organization.
At this point, you should go to the directory containing all the .bson files
from your database dump and rename it to rocketchat_data. This directory will
be your exported data file in the instructions below.
Import into a Zulip Cloud organization
If you are using Zulip Cloud, we'll take it from here! Please email
[email protected] with the following information:
-
The subdomain you would like to use for your organization. Your Zulip chat will
be hosted at <subdomain>.zulipchat.com.
-
The exported data file containing your workspace message history export.
If the organization already exists, the import process will overwrite all
data that's already there. If needed, we're happy to preserve your
data by moving an organization you've already created to a new
subdomain prior to running the import process.
Import into a self-hosted Zulip server
Zulip's import tools are robust, and have been used to import workspaces
with 10,000 members and millions of messages. If you're planning on doing
an import much larger than that, or run into performance issues when
importing, contact us for help.
-
Follow steps
1
and
2
of the guide for installing a new Zulip
server.
-
Copy the exported data file containing your workspace message
history export onto your Zulip server, and put it in /tmp/.
-
Log in to a shell on your Zulip server as the zulip user.
-
To import into an organization hosted on the root domain
(EXTERNAL_HOST) of the Zulip installation, run the following
commands.
-
The import could take several minutes to run,
depending on how much data you're importing.
-
The server stop/restart commands are only
necessary when importing on a server with minimal
RAM, where an OOM kill might otherwise occur.
cd /home/zulip/deployments/current
./scripts/stop-server
./manage.py convert_rocketchat_data /tmp/rocketchat_data --output /tmp/converted_rocketchat_data
./manage.py import '' /tmp/converted_rocketchat_data
./scripts/start-server
Alternatively, to import into a custom subdomain, run:
cd /home/zulip/deployments/current
./scripts/stop-server
./manage.py convert_rocketchat_data /tmp/rocketchat_data --output /tmp/converted_rocketchat_data
./manage.py import <subdomain> /tmp/converted_rocketchat_data
./scripts/start-server
-
Follow step 4
of the guide for installing a new Zulip
server.
Import details
Whether you are using Zulip Cloud or self-hosting Zulip, here are a few notes to
keep in mind about the import process:
| Rocket.Chat role |
Zulip role |
| Admin |
Owner |
| User |
Member |
| Guest |
Guest |
-
User avatars are not imported.
-
Default channels for new users are not imported.
-
Starred messages are not imported.
-
Messages longer than Zulip's limit of 10,000 characters are not
imported.
-
Livechat channels/messages are not imported.
-
Messages from Rocket.Chat Discussions are imported as topics
inside the Zulip channel corresponding to the parent channel of the
Rocket.Chat Discussion.
-
Messages from Rocket.Chat Discussions having direct channels
(i.e. direct messages) as their parent are imported as normal
direct messages in Zulip.
-
While Rocket.Chat Threads are in general imported as separate
topics, Rocket.Chat Threads within Rocket.Chat Discussions are
imported as normal messages within the topic containing that
Discussion, and Threads in Direct Messages are imported as normal
Zulip direct messages.
Additionally, because Rocket.Chat does not provide a documented or
stable data export API, the import tool may require small changes from
time to time to account for changes in the Rocket.Chat database
format. Please contact us if you encounter
any problems using this tool.
Get your organization started with Zulip
Once the import process is completed, you will need to:
- Instructions for all platforms
Decide how users will log in
When user accounts are imported, users initially do not have passwords
configured. There are a few options for how users can log in for the first time.
For security reasons, passwords are never exported.
Allow users to log in with non-password authentication
When you create your organization, users will immediately be able to log in with
authentication methods that do not
require a password. Zulip offers a variety of authentication methods, including
Google, GitHub, GitLab, Apple, LDAP and SAML.
Send password reset emails to all users
You can send password reset emails to all users in your organization, which
will allow them to set an initial password.
If you imported your organization into Zulip Cloud, simply email
[email protected] to request this.
To avoid confusion, first make sure that the users in your
organization are aware that their account has been moved to
Zulip, and are expecting to receive a password reset email.
Send password reset emails (self-hosted organization)
- Default subdomain
- Custom subdomain
-
To test the process, start by sending yourself a password reset email by
using the following command:
-
When ready, send password reset emails to all users by
using the following command:
./manage.py send_password_reset_email -r '' --all-users
-
To test the process, start by sending yourself a password reset email by
using the following command:
-
When ready, send password reset emails to all users by
using the following command:
./manage.py send_password_reset_email -r <subdomain> --all-users
If you would like to only send emails to users who have not logged in yet,
you can use the following variant instead:
```
./manage.py send_password_reset_email -r <subdomain> --all-users --only-never-logged-in
```
Manual password resets
Alternatively, users can reset their own passwords by following the instructions
on your Zulip organization's login page.
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