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Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 10:32:42 -0700
From: David Schultz <das@FreeBSD.ORG>
To: Attila Nagy <bra@fsn.hu>
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cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: maildir with softupdates
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On Wed, Jul 23, 2003, Attila Nagy wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Is this statement still valid?
> 
> "ext3 is unsafe for maildir, and with softupdates, so is ffs."
> http://www.irbs.net/internet/postfix/0202/0358.html

The statement is FUD; this is a topic that mailer people love to
complain about.  It's only true if your MTA doesn't call fsync()
when it wants to guarantee that the file it just wrote is on
stable storage.  Most filesystems don't guaranteed 100%
synchronous semantics for regular data unless you ask for them
explicitly, due to the performance implications.  The statement
you quote used to be true for ext3 due to an inadequacy in its
fsync() implementation, and I'm not sure if that was ever fixed.