[CentOS] Converting to maildir
Adam Tauno Williams
awilliam at whitemice.org
Tue Jan 4 14:12:31 UTC 2011
On Tue, 2011-01-04 at 09:05 -0500, Jason Pyeron wrote:
> > On Mon, 2011-01-03 at 20:17 -0500, Jason Pyeron wrote:
> > > Looking for a guide on converting to Maildir.
> > > Here are our relevant specs.
> > > sendmail-8.12.11-4.RHEL3.6 (we may not be able to upgrade
> > this due to
> > > too many
> > > modifications)
> > > imap-2002d-14
> > > procmail-3.22-10.el3.centos.0
> > > To a maildir setup...
> > > <rant>
> > > I was in a panic today at work because the backup server is
> > filling up
> > > too quickly, backing up peoples email. Further it is not backing up
> > > often enough. I just lost all of today's email. I hate mbox
> > and imap and outlook...
> > > </rant>
> > > All the maildir stuff I can find is postfix oriented.
> > Because sendmail is rapidly fading into history
> There are too many modifications to abandon it right now. Besides it is stable
> as a rock.
> > > From what I can read in
> > > procmail man pages, it supports maildir and sendmail uses
> > procmail as
> > > the LDA, hence sendmail "supports" it.
> > There are numerous IMAP servers that support maildir, and
> > scripts to import MBOX files - that is how I would approach
> > it. [But then I wouldn't use Maildir; I mean, really, who
> > cares what format your messages are in - use IMAP and network
> The backup server. As one file per mailbox, the backup server is backing up over
> 25G/hour. These files are not subject to de-duplication. With one message per
> file only the new messages would get added to the backup size.
> What would you use besides Maildir?
I use Cyrus IMAPd - where external modification of the mailstore is
forbidden [or at least very frowned upon]. That way it uses its own
internal storage format that can be customized to be efficient. It also
means it can keep *consistent* meta-data databases, such as search
indexes, which are *IMPOSSIBLE* if other clients are diddling around in
the mailstore. These databases add features, performance, and
stability. You also get things like delayed expunge and duplicate
supression [which can save scads of disk space]. All access to the
mailstore is via IMAP or POP. Messages are placed in the mailstore by
the MTA (sendmail / postfix) via LMTP - so Cyrus can also run the SIEVE
filtering language to provide on-delivery message filtering.
<http://www.cyrusimap.org/>
Administrative tools are provided to manipulate the message store in a
consistent and reliable way.
> > access your message store. Cyrus IMAPd will index and filter
> > all your messages for you].
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