[Dovecot] Using MySQL to store email?

[Geo Carncross]

On Tue, 2006-06-06 at 08:25 -0700, Marc Perkel wrote:
> I'm suggesting it in addition to MBOX and MAILDIR. And of course if 
> there's a MySQL version then other databases will follow. Just seems to 
> me that if I were running a really BIG email operation that MySQL could 
> have some serious benefits.

Using a "big ol' SQL database" will ALWAYS give _worse performance_ than
a specialized solution (like dbox), and will usually give _worse
performance_ than a naive but still specialized solution (like maildir
or mbox).

SQL's strengths are mutability, not performance- regardless of what you
or others might think. USUALLY the database performance is "good enough"
for most applications- but that doesn't mean it's even remotely close to
optimal.

Nevertheless, DBMail exists- it's an SQL backed IMAP server, and its
active- and supports MySQL (in addition to SQLite and PostgreSQL).

It's not as fast as dovecot at many things (as expected), but it's fun
to play with, and I've used it to experiment with new mail access
methods- i.e. non-IMAP access to messages.

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