[Dovecot] Not backing up cache files
I am using mdbox for dovecot storage.
I wonder if I could skip "dovecot.index.cache" files and, in general, "*.cache" files when doing mail backup. Those files are big and change frequently. What I feel from reading documentation [1][2] is that they could be dropped in the backups, to be recreated on the fly if needed.
But I would like expert confirmation.
[1] http://wiki2.dovecot.org/IndexFiles [2] http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Design/Indexes/Cache
Thanks!.
-- Jesús Cea Avión _/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ jcea@jcea.es - http://www.jcea.es/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ Twitter: @jcea _/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/_/ jabber / xmpp:jcea@jabber.org _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ "Things are not so easy" _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ "My name is Dump, Core Dump" _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/ "El amor es poner tu felicidad en la felicidad de otro" - Leibniz
i'm not the expert you're looking for, so dont take my word as one. And i'm basically using Maildir instead of mdbox ...
Anyway, i have dropped 'dovecot.index*' from some backups, full and incremental ones, action which made me save some Gbs of space on them. I already restored some accounts from these backups and had absolutely no problem at all !
Em 26/03/14 05:05, Jesus Cea escreveu:
I am using mdbox for dovecot storage.
I wonder if I could skip "dovecot.index.cache" files and, in general, "*.cache" files when doing mail backup. Those files are big and change frequently. What I feel from reading documentation [1][2] is that they could be dropped in the backups, to be recreated on the fly if needed.
But I would like expert confirmation.
--
Atenciosamente / Sincerily,
Leonardo Rodrigues
Solutti Tecnologia
http://www.solutti.com.br
Minha armadilha de SPAM, NÃO mandem email
gertrudes@solutti.com.br
My SPAMTRAP, do not email itWhat I feel from reading documentation [1][2] is that they could be dropped in the backups, to be recreated on the fly if needed. If you are using maildir, then yes, that's my understanding too, those files don't contain data that doesn't exist anywhere else. But beware
On 03/26/2014 04:05 AM, Jesus Cea wrote: that if you end up restoring many or all mailboxes at the same time, without indexes, then you will have lots of I/O activity for a while, as all of your users log in and the indexes are recreated. In some situations this might be overwhelming, depending on your workload/hardware.
On 3/26/2014 2:16 PM, Gedalya gedalya@gedalya.net wrote:
What I feel from reading documentation [1][2] is that they could be dropped in the backups, to be recreated on the fly if needed. If you are using maildir, then yes, that's my understanding too, those files don't contain data that doesn't exist anywhere else. But beware
On 03/26/2014 04:05 AM, Jesus Cea wrote: that if you end up restoring many or all mailboxes at the same time, without indexes, then you will have lots of I/O activity for a while, as all of your users log in and the indexes are recreated. In some situations this might be overwhelming, depending on your workload/hardware.
<sigh>
Both of the responses to your question apparently missed that you are using mdbox.
Obviously you can NOT ignore/delete the index files for dbox storage formats, but I'm not sure about the cache files.
I *think* you can ignore them, but I'd have to defer to someone else for a definitive answer, and I'm definitely interested in the answer to this too since I'm considering migrating to mdbox myself.
--
Best regards,
Charles
On 26/03/14 09:05, Jesus Cea wrote:
I am using mdbox for dovecot storage.
I wonder if I could skip "dovecot.index.cache" files and, in general, "*.cache" files when doing mail backup. Those files are big and change frequently. What I feel from reading documentation [1][2] is that they could be dropped in the backups, to be recreated on the fly if needed.
But I would like expert confirmation.
[1] http://wiki2.dovecot.org/IndexFiles [2] http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Design/Indexes/Cache
I stopped "dovecot".
I did a ZFS snapshot (play safe!), and disabled incoming messages.
I deleted ALL "dovecot.index.cache" (one per mailbox, I have about 500 mailboxes) without any apparent effect.
I started dovecot.
I moved around with apparently no side-effects. Cache are recreated, small size, growing as you download messages.
I still would love an authoritative answer.
-- Jesús Cea Avión _/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ jcea@jcea.es - http://www.jcea.es/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ Twitter: @jcea _/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/_/ jabber / xmpp:jcea@jabber.org _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ "Things are not so easy" _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ "My name is Dump, Core Dump" _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/ "El amor es poner tu felicidad en la felicidad de otro" - Leibniz
On 26.3.2014, at 10.05, Jesus Cea jcea@jcea.es wrote:
I am using mdbox for dovecot storage.
I wonder if I could skip "dovecot.index.cache" files and, in general, "*.cache" files when doing mail backup. Those files are big and change frequently. What I feel from reading documentation [1][2] is that they could be dropped in the backups, to be recreated on the fly if needed.
Yeah. dovecot.index.cache files never contain anything that can't be regenerated (except maildir messages' save-timestamps, but those are pretty much irrelevant).
participants (5)
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Charles Marcus
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Gedalya
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Jesus Cea
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Leonardo Rodrigues
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Timo Sirainen