[Dovecot] dovecot.index mtime

[Matt]

> >> I guess the issues I still think are important:
> >>
> >> 1. You shouldn't use dovecot.index as your marker file.
> >
> > I gave up trying to use dovecot.index.  Instead I look at each users
> > ./new directory.  If there are any messages over 6 months old I put
> > there email address in file that tells exim to reject any new
> > messages.  Run the script in cron.daily so if they start using it
> > again it will reactivate in 24 hours or less.  Having to look at all
> > messages in the ./new folders is significantly more CPU and I/O load
> > though.  Having run the script last night it seems to work fine.
> > Audited some of email addresses it added to be blocked and none look
> > out of place.
>
> Glad to hear you've got something that's working for you.
>
> For what it's worth, I'd look at the newest message in the ./cur folder,
> rather than the oldest in the ./new. (You want the last time the user

But most of my user POP3 and do not leave messages on server.  I just
check if there is a message over 6 months old in new.

> looked at a message, not the first time the user got mail after being
> logged in.) The actual difference in times probably isn't an important
> detail when you're talking O(6 months).
>
> But, the benefit is that you can get the timestamp for the last time the
> user read/deleted a message in ./cur simply by checking the change time of
> the ./cur directory. (rather than going through all its files)

Light bulb.  Wish I had thought of that.

> e.g.
> $ stat -c '%z (=%Z)' ~/Maildir/cur
> 2007-11-14 15:26:09.000000000 -0500 (=1195071992)
> $ stat -c '%z (=%Z)' ~/Maildir/cur/* | sort | tail -n 1
> 2007-11-14 15:26:09.000000000 -0500 (=1195071992)
>
> Should make it fast enough to run in cron.hourly, depending on your number
> of users/mailboxes.

I am going to have to try this.  I used find with -mtime to find all
messages over 6 months old in all the ./new directorys.  If this way
works it would be far more efficient.

Thanks.

Matt