dovecot - Jan 2022 - silly quesiton [ot]

Storing mail in a db... at the end of the day isn't it still just a file
(.db file) on the drive?
Aren't you just adding bloat and complexity vs just storing the mail
directly (maildir format) to a file on the drive?

What do you think you are saving? Security?
If someone can read files on your server, they can equally read a maildir or a
.db file.
K.I.S.S.

You'll get better indexing and fast full text search by storing your emails
in a database rather than a flat file, hopefully after decoding any attachments.
Especially for spam scoring, analysis, and classification. Much better
performance deleting or moving specific messages, too.

On January 30, 2022 5:46:53 PM AKST, dovecot at ptld.com
wrote:
>Storing mail in a db... at the end of the day isn't it still just a file
(.db file) on the drive?
>Aren't you just adding bloat and complexity vs just storing the mail
directly (maildir format) to a file on the drive?
>
>What do you think you are saving? Security?
>If someone can read files on your server, they can equally read a maildir or
a .db file.
>K.I.S.S.
-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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On Sun, Jan 30, 2022 at 09:46:53PM -0500, dovecot at ptld.com
wrote:
> Storing mail in a db... at the end of the day isn't it still just a
file (.db file) on the drive?
> Aren't you just adding bloat and complexity vs just storing the mail
directly (maildir format) to a file on the drive?
> 
> What do you think you are saving? Security?
> If someone can read files on your server, they can equally read a maildir
or a .db file.
> K.I.S.S.
I gain modularity for a system.
The database is the foundation.
I am working with:
1. Dovecot
2. Neomutt
3. OpenSMTPD

Now, if I decide to drop or addon some new program, I can just adjust
and/or add some new tables. Write a new stored procedure. Drop in a new
Perl module or subroutine.

1. Dovecot
2. Neomutt
3. OpenSMTPD
4. Xyz
5. Abc
6. SuperDuperMail-ThingyPlus

So what I am working for is a system that is united.

Add a new user and email, CLI program, bang. All done.
Change a password with a web interface. Click. All done.

I'm in no rush. This is a fun side project. I have already done this
type of work successfully for other kinds of projects, so it's
different, but not really outside of my past experience.

Secure today is wide open tomorrow. File, memory, etc. all get broken
eventually. I'm much more worried about my own mistakes than that of
others. :-*

-- 
Chris Bennett