email location - files or sql

Lucas Rolff
Thu, 24 Feb 2022 02:01:12 -0000

iRedMail does not store emails in a database. It stores account information in a
database. Emails are stored on the filesystem.

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________________________________
From: dovecot <dovecot-bounces at dovecot.org> on behalf of Robert
Moskowitz <rgm at htt-consult.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2022 9:48:11 AM
To: dovecot at dovecot.org <dovecot at dovecot.org>
Subject: Re: email location - files or sql



On 2/23/22 19:12, Ralph Seichter wrote:
> * Robert Moskowitz:
>
>> What I am seeing is that many of the packages seem to roll the
>> messages into some SQL database.
> Do they?

Packages like iRedMail list email stored in the database of your
choice.  Of course this is just their web blurb, and I have yet to find
one of these that suit my needs.  More and more, I am looking at rolling
my own again.  Challenge has always been integrating the anti-virus.
Clamav has been quite the challenge.

>> My Dovecot setup uses the /home/vmail/doman/../{cur,new,etc} tree
>> structure.
> That's the classic Maildir format. Widely supported, works fine if file
> system nodes are not a scarce commodity. Dovecot supports other formats
> (see https://doc.dovecot.org/admin_manual/mailbox_formats/) as well, but
> I still use Maildir because it is required by Notmuch, which is my
> software of choice for handling all my mailing list subscriptions.

I liked Maildir at the time and still do.  Only a 1,000+ emails a day.
My wife keeps a lot (10K messages) on the server, I keep all of my
various boxes on the server small.  So do my other users.

> Personally, I would not use a relational database as a mail store unless
> specifically required by the mail system of your choice. Email is not
> organised in a way that benefits from a RDB.

I was there for the beginning of RDB.  Almost had NOMAD shoved down my
throat (UNIVAC)  and did work with RIM (BCS) then R:Base.  Was gamma
release site of DB2, where we worked out how to do a UNION which was not
supported in the original design.  I have seen email systems that stuff
the messages into RDB and really wonder if the hammer really fits.



>
>> Is there some nice packed mailserver I can drop on a Centos-arm server
>> that has Dovecot under the covers and I can easily rsync my current
>> mail store to it?
> As far as migrating content is concerned, you're better off using some
> form of IMAP synchronisation. This method is not dependent on the
> underlying mail store format, and it preserves the IMAP flags for your
> existing messages.

I did see that mentioned once, and have down to research it.  Thanks for
the pointer.


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