From owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Oct 20 05:10:29 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A9CCA16A4B3 for ; Mon, 20 Oct 2003 05:10:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from psknet.com (kennedy.psknet.com [63.171.251.9]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E0A0943F75 for ; Mon, 20 Oct 2003 05:10:26 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from troy@psknet.com) Received: from pool-151-199-105-68.roa.east.verizon.net ([151.199.105.68] helo=tws) by psknet.com with asmtp (TLSv1:RC4-MD5:128) (Exim 4.20) id 1ABYrg-000DPO-Q4; Mon, 20 Oct 2003 08:10:25 -0400 From: "Troy Settle" To: "'Eric W. Bates'" , Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 08:10:26 -0400 Message-ID: <000b01c39703$260dcac0$667bfea9@tws> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.2616 In-Reply-To: <0ac901c393ea$4bc1ac80$68c311cc@fortiva> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165 Importance: Normal Subject: RE: consequences of migrating to maildir storage system X-BeenThere: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Internet Services Providers List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 12:10:29 -0000 > -----Original Message----- > From: Eric W. Bates > Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 9:35 AM > > Anyone have unfortunate experiences as a consequence of > converting mail storage from flat file (mbox) to maildir? I'm > concerned that the increase in the number of files might > cause problems with replication (we use rsync), backup or > even just running out of inodes. > > Thanks. > > Eric W. Bates > ericx@vineyard.net > I've never done a conversion, but having used both mbox and Maildir/ for medium-sized systems (4-5k accounts), I can say that Maildir/ is definitely the way to go. Don't worry about inodes, just don't use the defaults to newfs when building the filesystem. I didn't intend to go quite so high, but I ended up with over 90 million inodes on a 91GB filesystem. Currently, with ~4600 accounts: Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity iused ifree %iused Mounted on /dev/da1s1e 91G 5.7G 78G 7% 337904 95163918 0% /var2 I know that some believe that replicating/backing up a mailstore is good practice, but having suffered a lost system once, I found that it's not worth the hassle, as the mail lost wasn't backed up since the early morning hours, and the mail that was restored was already received by the users. Learning from this, I now use RAID5 (a simple mirror would work as well) to keep my mail, backing up configuration and passwd files only. HTH, -- Troy Settle Pulaski Networks http://www.psknet.com 540.994.4254 ~ 866.477.5638 Pulaski Chamber 2002 Small Business Of The Year