[CentOS] Converting to maildir

Rob Kampen rkampen at kampensonline.com
Tue Jan 4 18:04:35 UTC 2011


Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-01-04 at 09:56 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
>   
>> On 1/4/2011 8:14 AM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
>>     
>>>> Many people care about storage format.
>>>>         
>>> And they are misguided in doing so.  Details of message storage is an
>>> internal [server's] problem.
>>>       
>> So how do you suggest solving that problem when it is in fact a problem?
>>     
>
> You're missing the point of my objection.
>
> That the server is slow or difficult to manage [which includes backup]
> is the issue - not that it uses MBOX [regardless of that its use of MBOX
> is the root of the *server's* issue].
>
> Thinking of it in terms of messages-storage-format is misguided [I only
> mention it because I see the MBOX/MH/Maildir/Maildir++/etc... debate
> frequently].  This represents, IMO, a flawed approach to the problem.
>
> Migration to a new solutions [an IMAP server] that provides better
> performance / management is the fix.  Incidently, it will almost
> certainly not use MBOX.
>
> If you are 'manually' crawling around in your message-store [the *only*
> case where you'd actually care much about storage format] indicates
> something else it wrong [as well].
>   
At risk of confusing the debate - modern email is now largely HTML with 
lots of embedded graphics (just love all those base64 encoded bits 
clogging up the mbox) I made the shift from mbox to maildir about three 
years ago - my reasoning, let the OS file system worry about where and 
how to store the stuff - let the mail app worry about what emails I have 
and how to index.
Thus postfix, dovecot (imap only) and related spam tools seem to work 
fine for my small business. I'm sure the problems only get more involved 
if one has to support 1,000's of users.
Why is it that outlook and thunderbird use mbox type storage for their 
local storage?? Certainly a pain to manage in today's bloated email world.
We haven't seen the end of this problem - it is growing day by 
day.........really needs some creative solutions before we all drown in 
the data deluge.
Don't forget we also need to be able to search the last x days, weeks, 
years email's for something?
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