From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Aug 18 17:18:05 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 724BF16A418 for ; Sat, 18 Aug 2007 17:18:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jeffrey@goldmark.org) Received: from out2.smtp.messagingengine.com (out2.smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.26]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4970213C457 for ; Sat, 18 Aug 2007 17:18:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jeffrey@goldmark.org) Received: from compute2.internal (compute2.internal [10.202.2.42]) by out1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 958FB1479E; Sat, 18 Aug 2007 13:18:04 -0400 (EDT) Received: from heartbeat2.messagingengine.com ([10.202.2.161]) by compute2.internal (MEProxy); Sat, 18 Aug 2007 13:18:04 -0400 X-Sasl-enc: zpK51L7GNmIPVlxdYNAgWKzocIs3umFapsU+CZqcxaLr 1187457484 Received: from [10.1.10.136] (n114.ewd.goldmark.org [72.64.118.114]) by mail.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 40D0719A55; Sat, 18 Aug 2007 13:18:04 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20070818113706.02c7b950@mailsvr.xxiii.com> References: <4B90A9A7-D8D6-49C5-B097-00094486EF4A@messier.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20070818113706.02c7b950@mailsvr.xxiii.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: <07BCE366-AA5A-4BE0-9D3B-2403CAEB8B58@goldmark.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Jeffrey Goldberg Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2007 12:18:02 -0500 To: Rob X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.752.2) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: performance hints (6.2) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2007 17:18:05 -0000 On Aug 18, 2007, at 10:41 AM, Rob wrote: > What mailfile format are you using - mbox / mdir? And while it > might be a major change, consider dumping UW and using Dovecot > http://dovecot.org/ UW's performance, scalability, and security > have been less than great for many years. UW's performance and scalability is just fine if you use their *recommended* mailbox format, mbx. It's only if you use mbox (unix) which is provided for transition and backwards compatibility that you experience performance and scalability problems. I have no problem with mailboxes with more than 20K messages in mbx format using UW-IMAP. In my experience, all of the performance complaints about UW-IMAP have to do with people using legacy mailbox formats. UW appears to be the only IMAP server which provides support for such legacy formats, so that is probably why it takes so much blame for the performance problems of such mailboxes. See http://www.washington.edu/imap/documentation/formats.txt.html for Mark Crispin's rant about mailbox formats to help understand the choices made in UW-IMAP. There may be plenty of good reasons to prefer dovecote or cyrus or zimbra over UW-IMAP, but on this performance and scalability issue, UW-IMAP has had an unfair rap. -j -- Jeffrey Goldberg http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/