[Dovecot] Single-instance storage is bad for you!
This single-instance storage is going to encourage bad habits! I just found myself preparing an e-mail that needs to be sent to multiple recipients - including several within my own organization - yet it's not necessary for everyone (in-house) to get the large attachment. As I was getting ready to split the message into two parts for distribution I remembered - I can just send it to EVERYBODY in-house and it only occupies a single instance - which it would anyway just being in my "sent" folder! Blasting away...
You're quite the enabler, Timo! Now any mail admin who tries to lecture users on only sending attachments to those in-house personnel who really need it, because otherwise it's wasteful of precious server storage space, is going to hear the response, "Dude - don't stress out so much - just setup Dovecot with SIS!".
Thanks again!
Daniel
On Dom, 2010-11-14 at 22:34 -0800, Daniel L. Miller wrote:
You're quite the enabler, Timo! Now any mail admin who tries to lecture users on only sending attachments to those in-house personnel who really need it, because otherwise it's wasteful of precious server storage space, is going to hear the response, "Dude - don't stress out so much - just setup Dovecot with SIS!".
Thanks again!
Hi,
I have to agree that Dovecot promotes bad habits.
For instance we used to have to check cpu usage graphics for our IMAP servers several times a day with the previous server software, now sometimes a day passes and we don't check it. At first the operations dudes would notice our not logging in and call to check if we're sick, if our fifth grandfather had passed away or if we had hurt both our hands playing badminton, again, now they just look with a weird you-lazy-bastard kind of look.
Also we used to be called often because of IMAP problems and we were always full alert, nowadays we sometimes don't even answer the phone if we're in the middle of a urban terror game because we're almost sure that the call is not to report a problem and those nice red team folks really depend on our headshot skills and the blue team ones on our grenade throwing disability.
I think Timo should quit the crap and revert some patches to institute the old and healthy practices!!
-- Jose Celestino | http://japc.uncovering.org/files/japc-pgpkey.asc
"Assumption is the Mother of Screw-Up" -- Mr. John Elwood Hale
Daniel L. Miller put forth on 11/15/2010 12:34 AM:
Now any mail admin who tries to lecture users on only sending attachments to those in-house personnel who really need it, because otherwise it's wasteful of precious server storage space, is going to hear the response, "Dude - don't stress out so much - just setup Dovecot with SIS!".
No, the OP won't hear this from end users. They don't even know what Dovecot is, will have never heard of it nor "SIS".
The only folks he might take grief from is fellow sysadmins. But why would they care?
Also, what if at some point management forces you to dump Dovecot and move to a platform that doesn't offer SIS? If you change your tune with said users now, in the future, you may have screwed yourself after re-educating your users to the "SIS" way.
-- Stan
On 2010-11-15 1:06 PM, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
No, the OP won't hear this from end users. They don't even know what Dovecot is, will have never heard of it nor "SIS".
The only folks he might take grief from is fellow sysadmins. But why would they care?
Methinks it was a joke Stan... ;)
Also, what if at some point management forces you to dump Dovecot and move to a platform that doesn't offer SIS? If you change your tune with said users now, in the future, you may have screwed yourself after re-educating your users to the "SIS" way.
The migration should take care of it - each email that has an attachment that has been SiS'd would then convert to non-SiS'd with no data loss. Of course you should test it, because you might have some initial problems if you dramatically under-estimate the storage necessary *because* of SiS...
--
Best regards,
Charles
On Mon, 15 Nov 2010 12:06:40 -0600 Stan Hoeppner stan@hardwarefreak.com articulated:
Daniel L. Miller put forth on 11/15/2010 12:34 AM:
Now any mail admin who tries to lecture users on only sending attachments to those in-house personnel who really need it, because otherwise it's wasteful of precious server storage space, is going to hear the response, "Dude - don't stress out so much - just setup Dovecot with SIS!".
No, the OP won't hear this from end users. They don't even know what Dovecot is, will have never heard of it nor "SIS".
The only folks he might take grief from is fellow sysadmins. But why would they care?
Also, what if at some point management forces you to dump Dovecot and move to a platform that doesn't offer SIS? If you change your tune with said users now, in the future, you may have screwed yourself after re-educating your users to the "SIS" way.
Now that appears to be a rather cavalier attitude to take towards the OP's end users.
True, at some point management might move to a new platform. Conversely, they might just shut down the enterprise entirely. Worrying about what might happen is a fruitless and self defeating venture. The OP should carefully analyze his present situation. Then weighing the pros and cons of the various avenues available to him, choose the one that offers the greatest rewards. "Rewards" being an all inclusive term.
Es ist nicht die Wirklichkeit, die wichtig ist, sondern wie man Dinge wahrnehmen.
-- Jerry ✌ Dovecot.user@seibercom.net
Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or get ignored. Please do not ignore the Reply-To header.
Jerry put forth on 11/15/2010 12:47 PM:
Also, what if at some point management forces you to dump Dovecot and move to a platform that doesn't offer SIS? If you change your tune with said users now, in the future, you may have screwed yourself after re-educating your users to the "SIS" way.
Now that appears to be a rather cavalier attitude to take towards the OP's end users.
End users hate self contradictory statements made by anyone, especially the IT department, and especially when they see no tangible benefit of said change. They see the change as a pain the their ass, and simply a benefit to the IT department. In these situations, the IT dept better have a manager on staff with some darn good PR skills. :)
-- Stan
On Mon, 15 Nov 2010 13:28:03 -0600 Stan Hoeppner stan@hardwarefreak.com articulated:
Jerry put forth on 11/15/2010 12:47 PM:
Also, what if at some point management forces you to dump Dovecot and move to a platform that doesn't offer SIS? If you change your tune with said users now, in the future, you may have screwed yourself after re-educating your users to the "SIS" way.
Now that appears to be a rather cavalier attitude to take towards the OP's end users.
End users hate self contradictory statements made by anyone, especially the IT department, and especially when they see no tangible benefit of said change. They see the change as a pain the their ass, and simply a benefit to the IT department. In these situations, the IT dept better have a manager on staff with some darn good PR skills. :)
I am not seeing where you got this "self contradictory statements" from. Furthermore, a reasonably educate individual does not see "change" in the terms of anal discomfort, unless they as conservatives. A conservative being someone who never envisioned a new concept that they did not dislike. In any case, this is not a job for the PR department. Rather, it just requires someone with a "set". More apropos, I believe you are simply blowing this whole thing out of proportion.
-- Jerry ✌ Dovecot.user@seibercom.net
Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or get ignored. Please do not ignore the Reply-To header.
Jerry put forth on 11/15/2010 2:26 PM:
I am not seeing where you got this "self contradictory statements" from.
Then apparently you didn't read the thread. The OP told his users long ago "do this". Then he made a change and told them "oh, you don't really need to do that anymore". Then, possibly, down the road, he tells them, "oh, now you need to do it the old way again".
Users see that as self contradiction. Or "why can't he make up his mind?"
Furthermore, a reasonably educate individual does not see "change" in the terms of anal discomfort, unless they as conservatives. A conservative being someone who never envisioned a new concept that they did not dislike. In any case, this is not a job for the PR department. Rather, it just requires someone with a "set". More apropos, I believe you are simply blowing this whole thing out of proportion.
I'm blowing nothing out of proportion. I simply made an observation. I don't know about Europe, or anywhere else, but in American cusiness culture, in general, most users either dislike or outright hate the IT staff, regardless of the level of education. In fact, it's the ones who "think" they are highly educated who usually hate IT the most, because they think that given the chance they could do the job better. This is because they don't have a clue as to the work that goes on "behind the scenes", and the fact that their requests may never get implemented, or may take 6 months to go through the IT vetting process before being approved. The requirement of calling IT just to get a piece of software installed on the user's desktop because the user doesn't have rights is the first thing to turn users against IT.
Now, throw in the original scenario up top, and it's easy to understand how and why users would resent the best practices policy espoused by the OP.
My original reply to the OP was geared toward saving him grief. My recommendation to the OP was to simply say nothing to the users to save himself potential grief. That simple.
I believe you are making this into more than it needs to be. Have you ever worked in an IT environment with over 1000 users? And those users all love the IT staff, baking cookies for them etc? Send me contact info PLEASE so I can forward my resume.
-- Stan
On Mon, 2010-11-15 at 16:27 -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
Then apparently you didn't read the thread. The OP told his users long ago "do this". Then he made a change and told them [...]
No, he did not.
This thread lost its funny long ago. It started off quite amusing, the first two posts have been humorous (in case you didn't notice), then Stan entered the thread. Too bad to see a nice thread die that quickly.
--
char *t="\10pse\0r\0dtu\0.@ghno\x4e\xc8\x79\xf4\xab\x51\x8a\x10\xf4\xf4\xc4";
main(){ char h,m=h=*t++,*x=t+2*h,c,i,l=*x,s=0; for (i=0;i
On 2010-11-15 5:27 PM, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
The OP told his users long ago "do this". Then he made a change and told them "oh, you don't really need to do that anymore". Then, possibly, down the road, he tells them, "oh, now you need to do it the old way again".
Ummm... no, he didn't. Go back and read the first post.
This is silly... Stan, he (the OP) was *joking*...
Have you ever worked in an IT environment with over 1000 users?
Nope... just little old me and our 50-75 users (high turnover, so it fluctuates all the time)...
And those users all love the IT staff, baking cookies for them etc?
Yep - I get that all the time, and offers to be taken to lunch, and even money (for the things I do for personal/home computers)...
Send me contact info PLEASE so I can forward my resume.
You'd be bored to death here and your skills would go to waste... ;)
--
Best regards,
Charles
On Mon, 15 Nov 2010 16:27:03 -0600 Stan Hoeppner stan@hardwarefreak.com articulated:
Jerry put forth on 11/15/2010 2:26 PM:
I am not seeing where you got this "self contradictory statements" from.
Then apparently you didn't read the thread. The OP told his users long ago "do this". Then he made a change and told them "oh, you don't really need to do that anymore". Then, possibly, down the road, he tells them, "oh, now you need to do it the old way again".
Users see that as self contradiction. Or "why can't he make up his mind?"
Furthermore, a reasonably educate individual does not see "change" in the terms of anal discomfort, unless they as conservatives. A conservative being someone who never envisioned a new concept that they did not dislike. In any case, this is not a job for the PR department. Rather, it just requires someone with a "set". More apropos, I believe you are simply blowing this whole thing out of proportion.
I'm blowing nothing out of proportion. I simply made an observation. I don't know about Europe, or anywhere else, but in American cusiness culture, in general, most users either dislike or outright hate the IT staff, regardless of the level of education. In fact, it's the ones who "think" they are highly educated who usually hate IT the most, because they think that given the chance they could do the job better. This is because they don't have a clue as to the work that goes on "behind the scenes", and the fact that their requests may never get implemented, or may take 6 months to go through the IT vetting process before being approved. The requirement of calling IT just to get a piece of software installed on the user's desktop because the user doesn't have rights is the first thing to turn users against IT.
Now, throw in the original scenario up top, and it's easy to understand how and why users would resent the best practices policy espoused by the OP.
My original reply to the OP was geared toward saving him grief. My recommendation to the OP was to simply say nothing to the users to save himself potential grief. That simple.
I believe you are making this into more than it needs to be. Have you ever worked in an IT environment with over 1000 users? And those users all love the IT staff, baking cookies for them etc? Send me contact info PLEASE so I can forward my resume.
I have no idea how they do things in Europe either since I live in the USA. One of my first jobs was maintaining a network for approximately 500 users for a municipality. My first project was installing Postfix and Courier, since changed to Dovecot to replace a pre-2000 Exchange box. I would have gladly stayed with Exchange if they would have allocated the funds. That would have taken too long to get approved so I just ditched everything and installed the new system over a weekend. The point being, you do what you have to do.
I spend 25 years as a High School & semi-pro football official. On any close play, 50% of the players and fans are going to think you are nuts. You just learn to live with it, aka "Grow a set". You cannot please everyone, so please yourself. If you are going to worry and cry over whether or not Joe Smoe in accounting is mad at you, then perhaps it is you who should find a new line of work. I am not here to placate the company's employees.
-- Jerry ✌ Dovecot.user@seibercom.net
Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or get ignored. Please do not ignore the Reply-To header.
The Law of the Perversity of Nature: You cannot determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.
Jerry put forth on 11/15/2010 5:00 PM:
I am not here to placate the company's employees.
Whether you think so or not, you indeed are there to meet the needs of the user base. A lot of SAs often learn this lesson too late. Without users there is no need for your position. And that fact usually _doesn't_ cut both ways. Think about that for a second.
As I said, at many places this isn't an issue. At others, usually the large enterprises, IT staff are perennial fodder for the meat grinder, mainly because personal relationships with users can't be established simply because of scale.
You never see most of the people who rely on you, yet, they know exactly who you are when things you are responsible for break. They _will_ find you. If the wrong things break, or break too often, whether it's your action or lack thereof that causes the breakage, or equipment failure, etc, it doesn't often matter. Someone important who relies on that system can snap a finger and you're gone, often without ever meeting the person who snapped the fingers, even after 5, 10, 15 years with the place. :( It simply matter who in a position of power is having a really bad day/week/personal life/whatever, and decides to exact some form of revenge on the world that day, when a failure of _your_ system causes s/he to go over the edge. This phenomenon isn't isolated to IT. But, for the past 40 years, IT systems have replaced the functions of huge portions of the office staff functions, so IT is far more exposed to wrath. :(
-- Stan
Stan Hoeppner schrieb:
[..]
I'm blowing nothing out of proportion. I simply made an observation. I
I think you might have, by now, noticed OPs the humour -- so I won't stress it.
don't know about Europe, or anywhere else, but in American cusiness culture, in general, most users either dislike or outright hate the IT
I can't speak for Europe at all but in here in Germany most people like thier IT at large.
[..]
I believe you are making this into more than it needs to be. Have you ever worked in an IT environment with over 1000 users? And those users
Yep.
all love the IT staff, baking cookies for them etc? Send me contact
Yep.
info PLEASE so I can forward my resume.
Nope, the job is taken.
. o O (and Charles might be right, he might be bored to death)
Dennis
Dennis Guhl put forth on 11/15/2010 5:23 PM:
I think you might have, by now, noticed OPs the humour -- so I won't stress it.
I did. It was weak, but it was there. If you noticed, I responded to a specific point within his post, not to the entire post. I was making a serious point, regardless of his original intent. This happens quite frequently with mailing list topics. :)
-- Stan
Stan Hoeppner schrieb:
Dennis Guhl put forth on 11/15/2010 5:23 PM:
I think you might have, by now, noticed OPs the humour -- so I won't stress it.
I did. It was weak, but it was there. If you noticed, I responded to a
Apparently humour and sarcasm is not your strong point :)
specific point within his post, not to the entire post. I was making a serious point, regardless of his original intent. This happens quite frequently with mailing list topics. :)
Yes, I saw it sometimes happen.
participants (7)
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Charles Marcus
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Daniel L. Miller
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Dennis Guhl
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Jerry
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Jose Celestino
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Karsten Bräckelmann
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Stan Hoeppner