Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2006 19:52:45 -0300 (ADT) From: "Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@hub.org> To: Bill Moran <wmoran@collaborativefusion.com> Cc: duane@greenmeadow.ca, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: OT - Scalable email server solution needed Message-ID: <20060409195020.T1096@ganymede.hub.org> In-Reply-To: <20060409105550.0620530a.wmoran@collaborativefusion.com> References: <443731E5.9030209@greenmeadow.ca> <20060408074034.200f77a1.wmoran@collaborativefusion.com> <20060409002843.B1096@ganymede.hub.org> <20060409105550.0620530a.wmoran@collaborativefusion.com>
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On Sun, 9 Apr 2006, Bill Moran wrote: > "Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@hub.org> wrote: > >> On Sat, 8 Apr 2006, Bill Moran wrote: >> >>> One advantage of Maildir over mbox and the Cyrus db (that, for some >>> reason, I seldom see touted) is that you can make a safe backup of a >>> Maildir without shutting down the SMTP, POP, or IMAP server. With both >>> mbox and the Cyrus mail system, you have to shut the mail system down to >>> back up the mail boxes. >> >> Why with Cyrus IMAPd? I just had a major hardware failure, had to restore >> 30 mail spools from backup, all of which were 'backed up live', and the >> only thing I had to do once restored was run the 'reconstruct' command to >> make sure the various databases were sync'd up ... and the reconstruct >> command can be run while the system is live too ... > > I have only a small amount of experience with Cyrus. However: > http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/twiki/bin/view/Cyrus/Backup > > Based on that document, it appears as if you're dodging the bullet with > backups. My interpretation is that Cyrus keeps mailboxes in some sort > of db file. If a db file is being modified while you're backing it up, > the backed up version will be inconsistent, thus the entire mailbox > unusable. Agreed, but this db file is stored within the maibox itself, and which is what Cyrus has a 'reconstruct' command to rebuild ... so, after a restore, the first thing you run in 'reconstruct' to make sure you database(s) match the mailbox ... > Compare this to Maildir, where each message is a seperate file. If > you're backing up during access to a mailbox, a single message could end > up corrupt, but this will not affect the rest of the mailbox. Oh, wait, I misunderstood your first paragraph ... Cyrus IMAP stores its individual mail messages in a seperate file (old 'mh' kinda thing), but there is a db file that maintains the 'state' informatin for the folder (what messages have been read, marked deleted but not purged, etc) ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
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