dovecot - Aug 2013 - Please HELP: how to delete all messages older than X days from the server?

Hello,


Would you please help me solve the following case?

My (CentOS) server runs dovecot and allows both POP3 and IMAP service.
Users are virtual users (no home directories), with messages stored in 
Maildir directories under /var/spool/mail/vhosts/example.com/username

Some of them use mobile devices (without local storage space), so I must 
allow IMAP access, not just POP3. But the storage on the server must be 
for a strictly *limited* period of time.

As an admin, I'm trying to force each user to:

- download *locally* received messages when they arrive at the office
- don't let copies of messages on the server (incoming, sent, trash, 
drafts, etc.)

For various reasons, e-mail client configuration is not under my control 
(I can't rely on client configuration for implementing this).

Implementing filesystem quotas is not an option because a. presently, 
all virtual users share same UID/GID on the server and b. administrative 
reasons (the "full quota" situation may occur unexpectedly and this is
not tolerable in corporate policy).


So I need EITHER:

1. a method of downloading locally *all* messages from the server 
(incoming, sent, trash, drafts, etc.) to the workstation, when the user 
consults his/her mailbox from a POP3 desktop client, thus completely 
*emptying* the user's mailbox on the server

OR

2. an automatic, elegant but forceful method of deleting all messages 
older than X days (incoming, sent, trash, drafts, etc.)


I've tried to use a line such as:

doveadm expunge -u john.doe at example.com before 4w

run as root, from a script in crontab, but for "expunge" doveadm
won't
let me skip the "-u" parameter (to perform the expunge for *all*
users).


Could you please help? Any sugestion is welcomed.


Thanks a lot,
R?zvan
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On 08/06/2013 06:31 PM R?zvan Sandu wrote:
> ?
> Implementing filesystem quotas is not an option because a. presently, 
> all virtual users share same UID/GID on the server and b. administrative 
> reasons (the "full quota" situation may occur unexpectedly and
this is
> not tolerable in corporate policy).
Use Dovecot's quota plugin - which supports different backends. Each
user may have a different quota limit.

	* http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Quota
> So I need EITHER:
> 
> 1. a method of downloading locally *all* messages from the server 
> (incoming, sent, trash, drafts, etc.) to the workstation, when the user 
> consults his/her mailbox from a POP3 desktop client, thus completely 
> *emptying* the user's mailbox on the server
Usually only the INBOX is visible via POP3 ?
> OR
> 
> 2. an automatic, elegant but forceful method of deleting all messages 
> older than X days (incoming, sent, trash, drafts, etc.)
There is the expire plugin for Dovecot.

	* http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Plugins/Expire

> I've tried to use a line such as:
> 
> doveadm expunge -u john.doe at example.com before 4w
> 
> run as root, from a script in crontab, but for "expunge" doveadm
won't
> let me skip the "-u" parameter (to perform the expunge for *all*
users).
> 
> 
> Could you please help? Any sugestion is welcomed.
There is also the -A option, see
http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Tools/Doveadm/Expunge#section_options


Regards,
Pascal
-- 
The trapper recommends today: cafebabe.1321819 at localdomain.org

On Tue, 06 Aug 2013 19:18:15 +0200, Pascal Volk a scris:
> There is also the -A option, see
> http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Tools/Doveadm/Expunge#section_options

Thank you, but doveadm expunge will ask for the mailbox name:

[root at mail1 ~]# doveadm expunge -u john.doe at example.com ON 2013-08-07
doveadm(root): Fatal: expunge: To avoid accidents, search query must
contain MAILBOX in all search branches

What I need is to traverse *all* directories under
/var/spool/mail/vhosts/domainname/  (which are
/var/spool/mail/vhosts/domainname/username, with further variable
subdirectories, name never known in advance...) and to delete all
messages older than X days (incoming, sent, drafts, trash, etc.)

This must be done without manual confirmation ("are you sure...?") (if
I
do it via a script run from cron).
>From the examples given in the wiki page, the expire plugin presents the
same problem: one must know in advance the *name of the mailbox* he has
to empty.

Also for the correct search criteria: should I use SAVEDBEFORE or
SENTBEFORE ?


Thanks again,
R?zvan








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