[Dovecot] "failed to store into mailbox 'INBOX': Not enough disk space." with large mail

[Stan Hoeppner]

Charles Marcus put forth on 6/21/2010 4:43 PM:
> On 2010-06-21 5:31 PM, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
>> Charles Marcus put forth on 6/21/2010 12:23 PM:
>>> On 2010-06-21 12:20 AM, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
>>>> Set in /etc/postfix/main.cf
>>>>
>>>> mailbox_size_limit = 0
> 
>>> That's generally never a good idea (sets it to unlimited). Much better
>>> to just set it to a sane limit.
> 
>> That's a purely subjective statement Charles.  mailbox_size_limit is
>> a "poor man's" disk quota system and was designed strictly to be used
>> by Postfix only when Postfix is doing local delivery.
> 
> Actually, since I don't use mbox, I confused this with message_size_limit...
> 
> So... never mind... ;)

It's cool.  BTW, I'm pretty sure mailbox_size_limit affects both mbox and maildir:

mailbox_size_limit (default: 51200000)

    The maximal size of any local(8) individual mailbox or maildir file, or
zero (no limit). In fact, this limits the size of any file that is written to
upon local delivery, including files written by external commands that are
executed by the local(8) delivery agent.

    This limit must not be smaller than the message size limit.


For obvious reasons this will rarely affect maildir users (unless they receive
50MB attachments), whereas mbox users pushing emails into archival type or
list mail storing IMAP folders with sieve will bump into this more frequently
(which is what happened to me and prompted my addition to the LDA/Postfix wiki
section).  Another common scenario, probably more common actually, is mbox+POP
users who never delete anything leaving it all in INBOX.

-- 
Stan