dovecot - Sep 2016 - Implementing secondary quota w/ "Archive" namespace

Hello folks?

My first post, so please be gentle? :-)

I have a client email server using SSDs for primary user mailboxes, but since
the number of users keeps growing and they all seem to be very reluctant to
delete anything, I?ve implemented an ?Archive? namespace that stores its
mailboxes on a larger HD RAID. The idea is that, as the users approach their
quota, they move messages to the Archive mailboxes to alleviate space in their
primary Inbox namespace. This secondary storage part is working well, but I?m
having trouble w/ getting the quotas to work right. Here are the basics of the
setup:

Mac Pro Server 2012
Mac OS X Server 10.6.8
Dovecot 1.1.20apple0.5

Here is how I?ve configured my namespaces (during testing):

namespace private {
separator = /
prefix inbox = yes
}

namespace private {
separator = /
prefix = testArchive/
location = maildir:/Shared Items/MailArchive/%u
subscriptions = yes
}

My quota research has led me to try this:

quota = maildir:User quota:ns
quota2 = maildir:ns=testArchive/
quota2_rule = *:storage=20G

The first line is already in the default config, with the exception of the added
?:ns=? at the end. The 2nd line in the examples I saw had a middle component w/
the quota name, but when I tried that, like so:

quota2 = maildir:Archive quota:ns=testArchive/

my server fails and shows this in the logs:
> Fatal: IMAP(*): Quota root test backend maildir: Unknown parameter:
ns=testArchive/

Any idea why it doesn?t like that? Also, do I need to add a quota_rule for the
primary quota? It does not have one normally in the Mac OS X Server config?

Thus far in my testing, I?ve been able to get the 2 quotas to show up in
Roundcube and Mac Mail.app. It?s a little messy?the first shows up as ?User
quota?, the 2nd as ?ns=testArchive/?, presumably because I cannot leave the
description field in there.

Unfortunately, both quotas show the same amount of space in use. If I drop the
primary quota to a mere 4MB for testing, and if I have 5.2MB of messages in a
testArchive folder, the space used for ?User quota? shows as 5.2MB (>100%),
as does the ?ns=testArchive/? quota (which is 20GB). In actuality, the Inbox
namespace is really only using a few KB? the 5.2MB is in the testArchive
namespace. This means that I cannot move messages between either set of
namespaces, and new messages are not delivered. So, the quota trouble here is
negating the whole point of having the Archive namespace...

Is there a way to get Dovecot to ?see? the 2 quotas as unique/discrete? It seems
like I?m close to accomplishing what I want, but just can?t quite get it to
cooperate. And that ?Unknown parameter? error is bewildering. Any ideas?

Thx,
Fred

P.S. I can add my Dovecot config to the thread upon request?didn?t want to make
this initial message even longer.

Hey Everybody?

Posted this to the list a couple of months ago, but didn?t get any responses. Is
there a better place to ask this question about quota & namespace
configuration? Seems like a lot of the discussion here is a little
deeper/lower-level than my configuration question, like debugging and
development?

Thx,
Fred

> On Sep 20, 2016, at 02:28 PM, Fred Turner <fred at c5consulting.net>
wrote:
> 
> Hello folks?
> 
> My first post, so please be gentle? :-)
> 
> I have a client email server using SSDs for primary user mailboxes, but
since the number of users keeps growing and they all seem to be very reluctant
to delete anything, I?ve implemented an ?Archive? namespace that stores its
mailboxes on a larger HD RAID. The idea is that, as the users approach their
quota, they move messages to the Archive mailboxes to alleviate space in their
primary Inbox namespace. This secondary storage part is working well, but I?m
having trouble w/ getting the quotas to work right. Here are the basics of the
setup:
> 
> Mac Pro Server 2012
> Mac OS X Server 10.6.8
> Dovecot 1.1.20apple0.5
> 
> Here is how I?ve configured my namespaces (during testing):
> 
> namespace private {
> separator = /
> prefix > inbox = yes
> }
> 
> namespace private {
> separator = /
> prefix = testArchive/
> location = maildir:/Shared Items/MailArchive/%u
> subscriptions = yes
> }
> 
> My quota research has led me to try this:
> 
> quota = maildir:User quota:ns> 
> quota2 = maildir:ns=testArchive/
> quota2_rule = *:storage=20G
> 
> The first line is already in the default config, with the exception of the
added ?:ns=? at the end. The 2nd line in the examples I saw had a middle
component w/ the quota name, but when I tried that, like so:
> 
> quota2 = maildir:Archive quota:ns=testArchive/
> 
> my server fails and shows this in the logs:
> 
>> Fatal: IMAP(*): Quota root test backend maildir: Unknown parameter:
ns=testArchive/
> 
> 
> Any idea why it doesn?t like that? Also, do I need to add a quota_rule for
the primary quota? It does not have one normally in the Mac OS X Server config?
> 
> Thus far in my testing, I?ve been able to get the 2 quotas to show up in
Roundcube and Mac Mail.app. It?s a little messy?the first shows up as ?User
quota?, the 2nd as ?ns=testArchive/?, presumably because I cannot leave the
description field in there.
> 
> Unfortunately, both quotas show the same amount of space in use. If I drop
the primary quota to a mere 4MB for testing, and if I have 5.2MB of messages in
a testArchive folder, the space used for ?User quota? shows as 5.2MB (>100%),
as does the ?ns=testArchive/? quota (which is 20GB). In actuality, the Inbox
namespace is really only using a few KB? the 5.2MB is in the testArchive
namespace. This means that I cannot move messages between either set of
namespaces, and new messages are not delivered. So, the quota trouble here is
negating the whole point of having the Archive namespace...
> 
> Is there a way to get Dovecot to ?see? the 2 quotas as unique/discrete? It
seems like I?m close to accomplishing what I want, but just can?t quite get it
to cooperate. And that ?Unknown parameter? error is bewildering. Any ideas?
> 
> Thx,
> Fred
> 
> P.S. I can add my Dovecot config to the thread upon request?didn?t want to
make this initial message even longer.

On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 3:28 PM, Fred Turner <fred at c5consulting.net>
wrote:
> Hey Everybody?
>
> Posted this to the list a couple of months ago, but didn?t get any
> responses. Is there a better place to ask this question about quota &
> namespace configuration? Seems like a lot of the discussion here is a
> little deeper/lower-level than my configuration question, like debugging
> and development?
>
> Thx,
> Fred
>
>
> > On Sep 20, 2016, at 02:28 PM, Fred Turner <fred at
c5consulting.net> wrote:
> >
> > Hello folks?
> >
> > My first post, so please be gentle? :-)
> >
> > I have a client email server using SSDs for primary user mailboxes,
but
> since the number of users keeps growing and they all seem to be very
> reluctant to delete anything, I?ve implemented an ?Archive? namespace that
> stores its mailboxes on a larger HD RAID. The idea is that, as the users
> approach their quota, they move messages to the Archive mailboxes to
> alleviate space in their primary Inbox namespace. This secondary storage
> part is working well, but I?m having trouble w/ getting the quotas to work
> right. Here are the basics of the setup:
> >
> > Mac Pro Server 2012
> > Mac OS X Server 10.6.8
> > Dovecot 1.1.20apple0.5
> >
> > Here is how I?ve configured my namespaces (during testing):
> >
> > namespace private {
> > separator = /
> > prefix > > inbox = yes
> > }
> >
> > namespace private {
> > separator = /
> > prefix = testArchive/
> > location = maildir:/Shared Items/MailArchive/%u
> > subscriptions = yes
> > }
> >
> > My quota research has led me to try this:
> >
> > quota = maildir:User quota:ns> >
> > quota2 = maildir:ns=testArchive/
> > quota2_rule = *:storage=20G
> >
> > The first line is already in the default config, with the exception of
> the added ?:ns=? at the end. The 2nd line in the examples I saw had a
> middle component w/ the quota name, but when I tried that, like so:
> >
> > quota2 = maildir:Archive quota:ns=testArchive/
> >
> > my server fails and shows this in the logs:
> >
> >> Fatal: IMAP(*): Quota root test backend maildir: Unknown
parameter:
> ns=testArchive/
> >
> >
> > Any idea why it doesn?t like that? Also, do I need to add a quota_rule
> for the primary quota? It does not have one normally in the Mac OS X Server
> config?
> >
> > Thus far in my testing, I?ve been able to get the 2 quotas to show up
in
> Roundcube and Mac Mail.app. It?s a little messy?the first shows up as ?User
> quota?, the 2nd as ?ns=testArchive/?, presumably because I cannot leave the
> description field in there.
> >
> > Unfortunately, both quotas show the same amount of space in use. If I
> drop the primary quota to a mere 4MB for testing, and if I have 5.2MB of
> messages in a testArchive folder, the space used for ?User quota? shows as
> 5.2MB (>100%), as does the ?ns=testArchive/? quota (which is 20GB). In
> actuality, the Inbox namespace is really only using a few KB? the 5.2MB is
> in the testArchive namespace. This means that I cannot move messages
> between either set of namespaces, and new messages are not delivered. So,
> the quota trouble here is negating the whole point of having the Archive
> namespace...
> >
> > Is there a way to get Dovecot to ?see? the 2 quotas as
unique/discrete?
> It seems like I?m close to accomplishing what I want, but just can?t quite
> get it to cooperate. And that ?Unknown parameter? error is bewildering. Any
> ideas?
> >
> > Thx,
> > Fred
> >
> > P.S. I can add my Dovecot config to the thread upon request?didn?t
want
> to make this initial message even longer.
>

I beat my head against basically the same wall a few years back (and
similarly felt like I was almost in reach but could never quite get it
working), so I'm highly interested in the same topic. But I'd love to
hear
from someone smarter than me if this is even possible. I don't mind beating
my head against a wall if it's not for no reason.

Can anyone verify if this is even possible? Timo?

On 20 Sep 2016, at 21.28, Fred Turner <fred at c5consulting.net>
wrote:
> 
> Mac Pro Server 2012
> Mac OS X Server 10.6.8
> Dovecot 1.1.20apple0.5
That's an old one..
> quota = maildir:User quota:ns> 
> quota2 = maildir:ns=testArchive/
> quota2_rule = *:storage=20G
> 
> The first line is already in the default config, with the exception of the
added ?:ns=? at the end. The 2nd line in the examples I saw had a middle
component w/ the quota name, but when I tried that, like so:
> 
> quota2 = maildir:Archive quota:ns=testArchive/
> 
> my server fails and shows this in the logs:
> 
>> Fatal: IMAP(*): Quota root test backend maildir: Unknown parameter:
ns=testArchive/
> 
> 
> Any idea why it doesn?t like that? Also, do I need to add a quota_rule for
the primary quota? It does not have one normally in the Mac OS X Server config?
You're trying to use Dovecot v2.x configuration in Dovecot v1.x. Sorry,
won't work without upgrade.

On Nov 20, 2016, at 4:28 PM, Fred Turner <fred at c5consulting.net>
wrote:
>> Mac Pro Server 2012
>> Mac OS X Server 10.6.8
>> Dovecot 1.1.20apple0.5
The 2012 Mac Pro Server shipped with 10.7.3. Did you seriously hack 10.6.8 onto
it?

Yeah, I gradually figured out it wouldn't work yesterday when delving back
into this and testing. No separate quotas per namespaces until 2.1 or something,
I think?

So, got any suggestions on getting it to work with v2.x? I found an old thread
from 2013 by Andreas (I think?) and he didn't seem to quite be able to get
it to work. Actually, though, I'd be happy to even be able to apply a quota
to the primary Inbox namespace and none to the secondary "Archive"
namespace, but my testing on a 10.10 Server wasn't having much success
either.

Thanks for the responses and input!
Fred
> On Nov 21, 2016, at 17:53, Timo Sirainen <tss at iki.fi> wrote:
> 
>> On 20 Sep 2016, at 21.28, Fred Turner <fred at c5consulting.net>
wrote:
>> 
>> Mac Pro Server 2012
>> Mac OS X Server 10.6.8
>> Dovecot 1.1.20apple0.5
> 
> That's an old one..
> 
>> quota = maildir:User quota:ns>> 
>> quota2 = maildir:ns=testArchive/
>> quota2_rule = *:storage=20G
>> 
>> The first line is already in the default config, with the exception of
the added ?:ns=? at the end. The 2nd line in the examples I saw had a middle
component w/ the quota name, but when I tried that, like so:
>> 
>> quota2 = maildir:Archive quota:ns=testArchive/
>> 
>> my server fails and shows this in the logs:
>> 
>>> Fatal: IMAP(*): Quota root test backend maildir: Unknown parameter:
ns=testArchive/
>> 
>> 
>> Any idea why it doesn?t like that? Also, do I need to add a quota_rule
for the primary quota? It does not have one normally in the Mac OS X Server
config?
> 
> You're trying to use Dovecot v2.x configuration in Dovecot v1.x. Sorry,
won't work without upgrade.