[Dovecot] Newbie questions: Load-balanced Dovecot with NFS storage

[Timo Sirainen]

On 2.3.2007, at 18.58, Mike Brudenell wrote:

> Assuming our trick of implementing preferred servers works OK I'm  
> tempted to use local disk for the indexes too.  I just need to get  
> a feel for how big these things grow.  Even knowing roughly how  
> much it needs per message (bytes? Kbytes?) might give me a clue to  
> start with.  Suggestions, anyone?

My INBOX is 40MB and my index files are currently:

-rw-------    1 cras     users       75736 Mar  2 23:36 dovecot.index
-rw-------    1 cras     users     1559552 Mar  2 23:36  
dovecot.index.cache
-rw-------    1 cras     users       95112 Mar  2 23:36  
dovecot.index.log
-rw-------    1 cras     users      131112 Feb 17 17:32  
dovecot.index.log.2

The cache file's size depends heavily on what client is being used  
and possibly also things like client-side filter rules etc.

>>> Q2. Does Dovecot (or "something") clean out old index files that  
>>> haven't
>>>     been accessed for a while?  Eg, when a user has temporarily come
>>>     through on a different IMAP server to normal.  Or do the index
>>> files
>>>     sit there untouched for evermore?
>>
>> They sit untouched forever.  Feel free to remove them after they  
>> get to
>> be of certain age.
>
> So if we were to have a cron job scan and delete old ones (like we  
> do with /tmp now) we should be OK?  There wouldn't be any Nasty  
> Things happen if we deleted an index file that turned out to still  
> be in use, even though it hadn't apparently been used for ages?

You could find based on atime, unless of course you've disabled atime  
updates.. Anyway, the worst that can happen when deleting index file  
that's already in use is that it logs some error and disconnects the  
user. The next login will work.


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