[Dovecot] Improving interaction/performance with Mail.app?
Hello,
I'm using dovecot as my IMAP server just for me, and I access it from
three machines, all using Apple Mail.app. Unfortunately the
performance is really bad, especially when deleting or copying a lot
of messages. I know this is the fault of Mail.app, whose IMAP support
leaves a lot to desire, but I was wondering if there could be some
dovecot configuration tricks that make the interaction smoother.
Thanks a lot,
Alan
-- Alan Schmitt http://alan.petitepomme.net/
The hacker: someone who figured things out and made something cool
happen.
.O.
..O
OOO
On Friday 30 Jun 2006 08:26, Alan Schmitt wrote:
I'm using dovecot as my IMAP server just for me, and I access it from three machines, all using Apple Mail.app. Unfortunately the performance is really bad, especially when deleting or copying a lot of messages. I know this is the fault of Mail.app, whose IMAP support leaves a lot to desire, but I was wondering if there could be some dovecot configuration tricks that make the interaction smoother.
Without any information on how the system is configured my crystal ball suggests maybe you are using mbox format rather than maildir on folders with lots of messages.
If crystal ball is broken, please supply more info to allow me to get it fixed.
On 30 juin 06, at 09:48, Simon Waters wrote:
On Friday 30 Jun 2006 08:26, Alan Schmitt wrote:
I'm using dovecot as my IMAP server just for me, and I access it from three machines, all using Apple Mail.app. Unfortunately the performance is really bad, especially when deleting or copying a lot of messages. I know this is the fault of Mail.app, whose IMAP support leaves a lot to desire, but I was wondering if there could be some dovecot configuration tricks that make the interaction smoother.
Without any information on how the system is configured my crystal
ball suggests maybe you are using mbox format rather than maildir on
folders with lots of messages.If crystal ball is broken, please supply more info to allow me to
get it fixed.
Thanks for the offer to help ;-)
I'm using dovecot 1.0rc1 using maildir format (mail gets in the
machine by fetchmail -> postfix -> procmail). Mail.app is the one
that comes with 10.4.7, which I just upgraded. I always access mail
locally, either because I'm using the machine where the server is, or
because I have a ssh tunnel to this machine.
I don't really know what kind of other information is relevant, so
don't hesitate to ask.
Thanks again,
Alan
-- Alan Schmitt http://alan.petitepomme.net/
The hacker: someone who figured things out and made something cool
happen.
.O.
..O
OOO
out of curiousity, how do you know it's mail.app? have you tested your imap server with other clients? maybe your server has problems.....
the only things you can tweak in dovecot are the client workarounds, and turning on/off indexing, which i assume you have on
maybe you could explain the problems in more detail?
Alan Schmitt [alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org] wrote:
On 30 juin 06, at 09:48, Simon Waters wrote:
On Friday 30 Jun 2006 08:26, Alan Schmitt wrote:
I'm using dovecot as my IMAP server just for me, and I access it from three machines, all using Apple Mail.app. Unfortunately the performance is really bad, especially when deleting or copying a lot of messages. I know this is the fault of Mail.app, whose IMAP support leaves a lot to desire, but I was wondering if there could be some dovecot configuration tricks that make the interaction smoother.
Without any information on how the system is configured my crystal
ball suggests maybe you are using mbox format rather than maildir on
folders with lots of messages.If crystal ball is broken, please supply more info to allow me to
get it fixed.Thanks for the offer to help ;-)
I'm using dovecot 1.0rc1 using maildir format (mail gets in the
machine by fetchmail -> postfix -> procmail). Mail.app is the one
that comes with 10.4.7, which I just upgraded. I always access mail
locally, either because I'm using the machine where the server is, or
because I have a ssh tunnel to this machine.I don't really know what kind of other information is relevant, so
don't hesitate to ask.Thanks again,
Alan
-- Alan Schmitt http://alan.petitepomme.net/
The hacker: someone who figured things out and made something cool
happen. .O. ..O OOO
-- Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
On 1 juil. 06, at 02:23, Chris Cappuccio wrote:
out of curiousity, how do you know it's mail.app?
I don't, but I have seen reports of bad IMAP performance for Mail.app
but no such report for dovecot, so it was my first assumption.
have you tested your imap server with other clients? maybe your server has problems.....
It could be a possibility. The strange thing is that it does not
matter how many clients are connected, the behavior is often the
same: messages are copied or deleted one per minute (it seems), and I
see every minute in the log things like:
Jun 28 16:21:51 top dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<schmitta>,
method=PLAIN, rip=::1, l ip=::1, secured
Jun 28 16:21:52 top dovecot: IMAP(schmitta): Disconnected
Jun 28 16:22:52 top dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<schmitta>,
method=PLAIN, rip=::1, l ip=::1, secured
Jun 28 16:22:54 top dovecot: IMAP(schmitta): Disconnected
It should also be noted that since I installed OS X.4.7, things seem
to be working better.
the only things you can tweak in dovecot are the client workarounds,
Ah, nice to point this out. I just turned on "delay-newmail" as it's
indicated to help with OS X.
and turning on/off indexing, which i assume you have on
I did not change anything about indexing.
maybe you could explain the problems in more detail?
Well, it seems that Mail.app copies or deletes messages one at a
time, and sometimes wait for one minute between two messages. When
this happens, going to another mailbox (to read messages, for
instance) takes forever, and coming back to the mailbox where the
messages were deleted shows them, until they get deleted on the
server. I don't really know how to explain it differently (which is
probably part of the problem as well ;-) ).
Thanks a lot,
Alan
-- Alan Schmitt http://alan.petitepomme.net/
The hacker: someone who figured things out and made something cool
happen.
.O.
..O
OOO
On Sat, 2006-07-01 at 09:51 +0200, Alan Schmitt wrote:
Well, it seems that Mail.app copies or deletes messages one at a
time, and sometimes wait for one minute between two messages. When
this happens, going to another mailbox (to read messages, for
instance) takes forever, and coming back to the mailbox where the
messages were deleted shows them, until they get deleted on the
server. I don't really know how to explain it differently (which is
probably part of the problem as well ;-) ).
I guess by copying you mean within the server, and not eg. copying a local message to server?
What OS are you using in server side? And what filesystem?
If Linux, you could see what the server is doing by:
strace -tt -o log -p <imap process pid>
Then start the copying and see which part of it takes the longest.
On 1 juil. 06, at 19:51, Timo Sirainen wrote:
On Sat, 2006-07-01 at 09:51 +0200, Alan Schmitt wrote:
Well, it seems that Mail.app copies or deletes messages one at a time, and sometimes wait for one minute between two messages. When this happens, going to another mailbox (to read messages, for instance) takes forever, and coming back to the mailbox where the messages were deleted shows them, until they get deleted on the server. I don't really know how to explain it differently (which is probably part of the problem as well ;-) ).
I guess by copying you mean within the server, and not eg. copying a local message to server?
Yes, everything is always stored on the server.
What OS are you using in server side? And what filesystem?
Mac OS X.4.7, with HFS+ as files system.
If Linux, you could see what the server is doing by:
strace -tt -o log -p <imap process pid>
Then start the copying and see which part of it takes the longest.
I guess I could use Shark for this, but I don't know how to use it.
Alan
--
Alan Schmitt http://alan.petitepomme.net/
The hacker: someone who figured things out and made something cool
happen.
.O.
..O
OOO
On Sat, 2006-07-01 at 19:59 +0200, Alan Schmitt wrote:
On 1 juil. 06, at 19:51, Timo Sirainen wrote:
On Sat, 2006-07-01 at 09:51 +0200, Alan Schmitt wrote:
Well, it seems that Mail.app copies or deletes messages one at a time, and sometimes wait for one minute between two messages. When this happens, going to another mailbox (to read messages, for instance) takes forever, and coming back to the mailbox where the messages were deleted shows them, until they get deleted on the server. I don't really know how to explain it differently (which is probably part of the problem as well ;-) ).
I guess by copying you mean within the server, and not eg. copying a local message to server?
Yes, everything is always stored on the server.
What OS are you using in server side? And what filesystem?
Mac OS X.4.7, with HFS+ as files system.
I think I've heard before that Dovecot doesn't behave too great with OSX..
If Linux, you could see what the server is doing by:
strace -tt -o log -p <imap process pid>
Then start the copying and see which part of it takes the longest.
I guess I could use Shark for this, but I don't know how to use it.
Hmm. I guess it's time to put this in wiki:
On 1 juil. 06, at 20:14, Timo Sirainen wrote:
What OS are you using in server side? And what filesystem?
Mac OS X.4.7, with HFS+ as files system.
I think I've heard before that Dovecot doesn't behave too great with OSX..
This might be the cause. I've had the plan to move my IMAP server to
a linux box, this might be the good time.
Hmm. I guess it's time to put this in wiki:
Good to know. I just need to find a way to reproduce the problem.
Thanks a lot for your help,
Alan
-- Alan Schmitt http://alan.petitepomme.net/
The hacker: someone who figured things out and made something cool
happen.
.O.
..O
OOO
participants (4)
-
Alan Schmitt
-
Chris Cappuccio
-
Simon Waters
-
Timo Sirainen