So I was thinking that there probably could be some tool that during
a user's backup it would write the attachments among the user's
other files, so it would be easy to find all of the files needed for
a restore. This would of course mean that backups can take a lot
more space, because there's no SIS. Perhaps there could be some other
I see.
Instead of writing the links directly to the filesystem, why not keep
a links list (not a linked list 8-)) file in each directory that
contains the information for the links that should be there (source,
dest, attributes), then add an inotify hook in Dovecot to
create/update/delete the hard links in the directory so they match the
links list?
The links list would only need to be opened when there's a change and
could remain closed (and backup-able) at all other times, and
restoring a links list would immediately trigger the inotify hook and
regenerate all the required links.
Terry