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> This is not so much a problem as an 'I wonder'... |
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> |
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> I currently use dovecot imap with maildir to support several dozen |
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> folders containing several gigabytes of mail using Thunderbird as a mail |
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> client. This "works" - but I am surprised by the number of imap |
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> processes that the mail server is running to support a single |
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> Thunderbird client... it appears that there is one connection per folder |
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> and one process per connection... which seems (to me at least) to be |
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> overkill. |
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|
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Having never used dovecot, I can't comment on this. But maybe this can be |
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changed in a configuration file somewhere? |
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But I think this is caused by the client, not by the server. |
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|
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> I'm aware that there are lots of IMAP clients I might have chosen - |
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> Courier; UWImap, Cyrus and dovecot... but I'm finding it difficult to |
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> establish details which would help me choose the most appropriate server |
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> for my purposes. In order of importance, I'm interested in: |
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> |
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> 1. Stability and reliability. |
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> 2. Scalability to handle a very large number of 'folders' for a |
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> relatively small number of end-users. |
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> 3. Performance (primarily with respect to 'new mail' |
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> notifications, but also, to a lesser extent, with searching archived |
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> messages. |
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> |
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> I'd be interested to hear any anecdotes from Gentooists who have |
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> addressed a similar question recently... |
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> |
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> Steve |
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|
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I have a similar requirement for my emails, esp. with the mailinglists I |
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can end up with some very large folders (100,000+ messages in one of my |
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folders) |
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|
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I found that Courier-IMAP didn't manage to handle these folders very well, |
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and I had to split these folders up into seperate folders for this to |
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work. |
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I have since moved to Cyrus and I find that this works easier, even with |
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only 2 users using it, it currently handles over 7Gb of stored email. |
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|
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Only once had a problem with one of the folders, which was easily fixed. |
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The cause for this was most likely a minor corruption on the filesystem |
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when my server lost power. (UPS is unreliable, but that's a different |
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issue) |
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|
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As for the performance with regards to notifications, I find that the |
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mailclient is responsible for this, rather then the server. Doing a quick |
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check for new emails is very quick with Cyrus, Courier didn't scale very |
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well in my experience. |
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|
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I hope this helps, and that others can come with more information, |
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including some benchmarks, if these exist. |
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|
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As a final note, I don't think either Courier or Cyrus have ever lost a |
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single email, but I have never done a full check for this. |
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|
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-- |
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Joost Roeleveld |
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|
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-- |
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gentoo-user@g.o mailing list |
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