Hello Adam,

thanks for the reply. Sounds fair enough to me. I hadn't thought about that last benefit of git. I haven't deleted anything off my pc for years ... still got HDD from 15 years ago with 'something' on them ?

Sorry this is going to go off topic somewhat .... (ok, I've just read it again... its gone off topic a lot... again, apologies for that)

One more question, if you are using exclusively LibreOffice, I understand it has a mode where it will separate the file into its constituent flat, text XML files (style, contents, formatting etc), all of which can then be stored in git with all the advantages that privides, no binary files needed. Do you use this functionality ? I haven't done this so I don't know how it impacts the work flow for a user, or how it will integrate into a git workflow, but would be interested to hear a user experience. I just use the inbuilt 'versioning' that is available within libreoffice (much better than multiple copies of the same file with just a few changes).

Hopefully my last set of 'novice questions' ;)

thanks in advance.

David

On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 10:41 AM Adam adam.ranek@seznam.cz wrote:

Hi David,

Please find answers bellow.

Kind regards, Adam

---------- Původní e-mail ---------- Od: David Myers david.myers.24j74@gmail.com Komu: Adam adam.ranek@seznam.cz, Dovecot Mailing List < dovecot@dovecot.org> Datum: 7. 10. 2020 8:44:28 Předmět: Re: Version controlled (git) Maildir generated by Dovecot Hello Adam, and the dovecot list

...

Just a question, I hate to pollute the thread, so feel free to push these questions into a new thread if deemed necessary. So as you can guess I'm a bit of a newb here, so rather obvious questions are about to arrive....

As you are using GIT for your archive (which is a cool idea by the way) I'm sure you are well aware that not all files types play nicely with version control, my question therefore is : How do you plan to handle attachments ?

I use git for everything including for example LibreOffice / Word documents. Git works just fine with binary files. You can't use text tools like "git diff" but... it works.

...

Also, although I appreciate the idea of using git, emails generally don't 'change', but I guess that also depends on how you are storing them (single email with links to previous / next ... etc, or as a single big file for each specific thread). Although this is hitting my limits of understanding for how dovecot works, so I probably need educating on this (a pointer to the docs would be good).

As I mentioned in the first e-mail, I configured Dovecot to use Maildir format -> each e-mail is a single text file. Mail body + attachment(s) are in the same file, attachment(s) are Base64 encoded.

...

You seem concerned regarding the files that you are ignoring that you will need to 'recreate them', so why not do a complete git add . prior to adding them into the git ignore, then you have an initial state for those files too.

But I don't want to store files that can be regenerated. I don't want to backup stuff, that doesn't have information value.

...

Final thought, what advantage do you envisage by using git as opposed to simply using a filter to select the files over a certain age, and place them into a zipped TAR archive ? Although I guess you could eventually zip the git archive too, and in the interim it would remain searchable by your users mail clients whilt in git.

I like to use git ;-). Tar will work just fine.

In this use case the only real benefit of git is that it never forgets. Unless I delete whole .git directory, I can make a mistake, delete some e-mails (files), commit changes and rollback. I can't rollback if I delete tar archive.

...

Thanks in advance, and apologies once again for polluting your question with my own.

David

My 5 cents: Git is REVISION control, It make sense to use it if files are modified. Email is static files so it's better to use any backup system with archiving capabilities (gzip or similar). It provide ability to copy partially or just some old years to another HDD that is not possible with git. Also you can archive by dsync to that new server with account on mdbox account with gzip compression. That will save space and gives you full access to all email.

P.S. there are many options to choose. I use borg to backup everything, including email and mdbox format with separate folder for attachments that deduplicate attachments on backups and in filesystem.

On Wed, 07 Oct 2020 12:31:44 +0200 (CEST) Adam adam.ranek@seznam.cz wrote:

Am 07.10.20 um 13:20 schrieb Adam:

Thank you Vitalii.

Could you please tell me / do you know if those dovecot* files have to be also backed / archived?

Kind regards,

Adam

...

---------- Původní e-mail ---------- Od: Vitalii vnagara@yandex.com Komu: Adam adam.ranek@seznam.cz Datum: 7. 10. 2020 12:04:11 Předmět: Re: Version controlled (git) Maildir generated by Dovecot My 5 cents: Git is REVISION control, It make sense to use it if files are modified. Email is static files so it's better to use any backup system with archiving capabilities (gzip or similar). It provide ability to copy partially or just some old years to another HDD that is not possible with git. Also you can archive by dsync to that new server with account on mdbox account with gzip compression. That will save space and gives you full access to all email.

P.S. there are many options to choose. I use borg to backup everything, including email and mdbox format with separate folder for attachments that deduplicate attachments on backups and in filesystem.

Hi, with maildir you can just use rsync for pure backup

for archive i.e

something like

https://blog.sys4.de/mailarchiv-mit-dovecot-und-postfix-sortiert-nach-datum-...

but there are many ways to goal this

-- [*] sys4 AG

http://sys4.de, +49 (89) 30 90 46 64 Schleißheimer Straße 26/MG, 80333 München

Sitz der Gesellschaft: München, Amtsgericht München: HRB 199263 Vorstand: Patrick Ben Koetter, Marc Schiffbauer Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender: Florian Kirstein

Or on a testing system I can just stop Dovecot, remove everything that doesn't start with a number and restart Dovecot and connect Thunderbird and see the results. Thank you.

---------- Původní e-mail ---------- Od: Gerald Galster list+dovecot@gcore.biz Komu: dovecot@dovecot.org Datum: 7. 10. 2020 14:36:43 Předmět: Re: Version controlled (git) Maildir generated by Dovecot

...

Could you please tell me / do you know if those dovecot* files have to be also backed / archived?

IIRC the plain files from cur/ and new/ should suffice.

You can try it: create a new IMAP folder, then close your mail app. Copy some mail files from another cur/ to this imap folder's cur/ directory. Reopen your mail app and see if new mails are fetched.

Best regards Gerald

Adam,

Just for completions sake, and in case someone else comes here in the future;

This is a link to the current (2020 LO 7) wiki page describing the XML format https://help.libreoffice.org/7.0/en-GB/text/shared/00/00000021.html?&DbPAR=WRITER&System=UNIX .

However it doesn't mention about being able to save a document directly as its constituent XML docs ??? so maybe the function has been removed, I have miss remembered, or I am going mad (I vote for the 4th option ;) ).

David

On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 12:31 PM Adam adam.ranek@seznam.cz wrote:

Hi David,

I've never heard about such feature in LibreOffice. Thank you for letting me know.

I don't really see myself using the feature since I'd have to remember it. I'm used to store all sort of stuff / binary files in git. My rule of thumb is that if the file is bellow 10M, just add/commit it. Is it proper way of using git? No. Does it work? Yes ;-).

I think that the difference between us is that I'm used to use git for everything and you aren't which means neither you or I are correct ;-).

Kind regards, Adam

...

Hello Adam,

thanks for the reply. Sounds fair enough to me. I hadn't thought about

---------- Původní e-mail ---------- Od: David Myers david.myers.24j74@gmail.com Komu: Adam adam.ranek@seznam.cz Datum: 7. 10. 2020 10:05:28 Předmět: Re: Version controlled (git) Maildir generated by Dovecot that last benefit of git. I haven't deleted anything off my pc for years ... still got HDD from 15 years ago with 'something' on them ?

...

Sorry this is going to go off topic somewhat .... (ok, I've just read it

again... its gone off topic a lot... again, apologies for that)

...

One more question, if you are using exclusively LibreOffice, I

...

has a mode where it will separate the file into its constituent flat, text XML files (style, contents, formatting etc), all of which can then be stored in git with all the advantages that privides, no binary files needed. Do you use this functionality ? I haven't done this so I don't know how it impacts the work flow for a user, or how it will integrate into a git workflow, but would be interested to hear a user experience. I just use the inbuilt 'versioning' that is available within libreoffice (much better than multiple copies of the same file with just a few changes).

Hopefully my last set of 'novice questions' ;)

thanks in advance.

David

On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 10:41 AM Adam adam.ranek@seznam.cz wrote: Hi David,

Please find answers bellow.

Kind regards, Adam

---------- Původní e-mail ---------- Od: David Myers david.myers.24j74@gmail.com Komu: Adam adam.ranek@seznam.cz, Dovecot Mailing List < dovecot@dovecot.org> Datum: 7. 10. 2020 8:44:28 Předmět: Re: Version controlled (git) Maildir generated by Dovecot Hello Adam, and the dovecot list

...

Just a question, I hate to pollute the thread, so feel free to push

...

...

questions into a new thread if deemed necessary. So as you can guess I'm a bit of a newb here, so rather obvious questions are about to arrive....

As you are using GIT for your archive (which is a cool idea by the way) I'm sure you are well aware that not all files types play nicely with version control, my question therefore is : How do you plan to handle attachments ?

I use git for everything including for example LibreOffice / Word documents. Git works just fine with binary files. You can't use text tools

understand it these like "git diff" but... it works.

...

...

Also, although I appreciate the idea of using git, emails generally

...

...

'change', but I guess that also depends on how you are storing them (single email with links to previous / next ... etc, or as a single big file for each specific thread). Although this is hitting my limits of understanding for how dovecot works, so I probably need educating on this (a pointer to the docs would be good).

As I mentioned in the first e-mail, I configured Dovecot to use Maildir

don't format -> each e-mail is a single text file. Mail body + attachment(s) are in the same file, attachment(s) are Base64 encoded.

...

...

You seem concerned regarding the files that you are ignoring that you

...

...

to 'recreate them', so why not do a complete git add . prior to adding

will need them into

...

...

the git ignore, then you have an initial state for those files too.

But I don't want to store files that can be regenerated. I don't want to backup stuff, that doesn't have information value.

...

Final thought, what advantage do you envisage by using git as opposed to simply using a filter to select the files over a certain age, and place them into a zipped TAR archive ? Although I guess you could eventually zip the git archive too, and in the interim it would remain searchable by your users mail clients whilt in git.

I like to use git ;-). Tar will work just fine.

In this use case the only real benefit of git is that it never forgets. Unless I delete whole .git directory, I can make a mistake, delete some e-mails (files), commit changes and rollback. I can't rollback if I delete tar archive.

...

Thanks in advance, and apologies once again for polluting your question with my own.

On Wed, Oct 07, 2020 at 02:58:41PM +0000, Bernd Petrovitsch wrote:

Hi all!

On 07/10/2020 14:45, David Myers wrote: [...]

...

Just for completions sake, and in case someone else comes here in the future;

+1!

...

This is a link to the current (2020 LO 7) wiki page describing the XML format https://help.libreoffice.org/7.0/en-GB/text/shared/00/00000021.html?&DbPAR=WRITER&System=UNIX.

However it doesn't mention about being able to save a document directly as its constituent XML docs ??? so maybe the function has been removed, I have miss remembered, or I am going mad (I vote for the 4th option ;) ).

In e.g. localc, you can "save as" an select at the bottom right "Flat XML ODF Spreadsheet (.fods)".

The same exists in lowriter (and very probably in all others - I didn't use them up to now).

In LibreOffice you can save a text document as .fodt , where you can see all the xml. It does not contain line breaks, so merging with most revision control systems won't be useful.

-- hendrik