[Dovecot] fts squat -> webmail, fastcgi timeout: SOLR the answer?

[Stan Hoeppner]

Charles Marcus put forth on 2/10/2010 8:04 AM:
> On 2010-02-10 5:17 AM, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
>> mailinglists at belfin.ch put forth on 2/10/2010 3:01 AM:
>>> And the other question is, is there any mail user agent that would support
>>> server-side full text indexing and not create own indexes?
> 
>> Thunderbird.  Maybe all MUAs?  Usually with smartly designed MUAs body searches
>> are left to the IMAP server to perform.  On standard TB, in the absence of
>> about:config hacks, one cannot run a body search on an IMAP folder unless you
>> check the "Run search on server" box.
> 
> Interesting, I never noticed that checkbox - probably because I rarely
> use the advanced search...
> 
> But I'm confused by your answer...
> 
> First you said 'Thunderbird. Maybe all MUSa?' - then seemed to totally
> contradict yourself when you said 'On standard TB ... one cannot run a
> body search on an IMAP folder unless ...' ?

I haven't used any other MUA for years, so I don't know how they do their
searches.  However, it doesn't make technical sense to perform a full body
search in the MUA since all the body data is typically left on the IMAP server.
 This would make the search horribly slow over dsl/cable and generate a ton of
useless network traffic.  On a local network it would be much faster, but again,
it would generate a ton of useless traffic.  Body searches should always be
performed by the IMAP server itself.

> So - is there a user pref that can be set in user.js to enable full body
> server-side searches (ie for servers using dovecot with fts squat enabled)?

You misread what I sent.  My comment relating to about:config hacking was a
disclaimer.  I don't know if there are any config hacks to eliminate the need
for that check box or not.  I stated the disclaimer so someone wouldn't chime in
with "Yes you can!  You just edit *this* is about:config".  Got it?  Ok, good.
Again, TB can _ONLY_ do server side body searches.  UNLESS you've enabled off
line mode and have synchronized the IMAP folders.  To "synchronize" in TB
terminology means to download a complete copy of the selected IMAP folders to
the local hard disk.  Once the IMAP folders are on the local hard disk, and you
enable off line mode, any body searches of your IMAP folders will occur on the
local machine.  This isn't difficult to understand is it?

>> Anything else is a header search, and headers are already indexed by 
>> TB for pretty much everything.
> 
> My understanding is that not *all* headers are indexed, only 'Normal'
> headers - which is why I opened bug 543956...

Ok, I'll go with that.  RFC821 headers are indexed but MIME headers are not.
And MIME headers probably shouldn't be anyway, as there would be no benefit
except maybe in extremely rare cases.

-- 
Stan