[Dovecot] POP (dot) locks

[Timo Sirainen]

On 22.5.2004, at 06:46, Christian Balzer wrote:

> Timo wrote (hmm, given the usual programmers life style I'd say VERY 
> late
> at nigth :) :

Just went to bed, now just the last few things.. :)

> User has a client at home to auto-download (but leave mails on server)
> and is using a slow link, so those message downloads take a quite
> measurable time. Now he logs into webmail (which of course also
> ultimately uses dovecot to access the mailbox) and deletes a message
> which is currently in transit to his home machine.
> Will the result be:
> a) The "read" of that message has triggered an internal dovecot lock 
> and
>    the "write" of the delete will have to wait until this is released.

Dovecot read-locks the mailbox while it's reading a mail, so this one 
happens.

> b) The delete happens immediately, but thanks to buffering the read and
>    delivery of the message is always successfully finished.

Something like this would happen with maildir.

> c) The delete of the message happens immediately, the state of the
>    message in transit is indeterminable and it might be truncated.

And this would happen if you didn't set the locking correctly :)
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