[Dovecot] Is dovecot the right choice for this problem?

[Bill Cole]

At 11:05 PM -0600 12/7/07, Darren McLaughlin wrote:
>Bill,
>
>There's a ringing endorsement of Verio.

And maybe not quite fair, since your first paraphrasing came across 
as further from reality than the second...


>They told me that the
>server had a"group mail file" and all the users had their mail
>stored together.  If I installed Dovecot, they said it would split
>the mailboxes up into individual files, and reduce the load on teh
>server, thus allowing it to better handle large mailboxes.  I guess
>they are just making it up as they go along...  thanks for the info
>though.  I suppose I will seek an independent email host somewhere
>and have their mail forwarded, or upgrade my server on verio.

As Timo noted, that sounds a little closer to a common circumstance 
of a mailstore running UW-IMAP or qpopper or ipop3d some other old 
mailstore server that only uses classic mbox files. That's not one 
file for everyone, but one file for all of each user's delivered but 
undeleted mail. That can cause performance problems that are largely 
resistant to simple CPU or memory upgrades, so changing the mailstore 
format to something else like maildir (used by Dovecot and Courier) 
is a better approach. This is particularly a problem if you have 
users with very large collections of mail that they treat as 
permanent on the server but are only accessing via POP through a 
POP-only server.

Incidentally, it is helpful to understand and use the 
terminology/jargon carefully. A "mail queue" usually refers to the 
directories used for very temporary storage of mail on its way in or 
out of a server, while the terms "mailbox," "mailstore," "mail 
spool," and "mail file" usually refer to the place(s) where delivered 
messages sit until the user asks a POP or IMAP server handling those 
mailboxes to delete them. Mail queues are handled by mail transport 
agents, aka "MTA's" like Sendmail or Postfix.


>Thanks,
>
>Darren
>
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>
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>On 12/7/2007 at 10:49 PM Bill Cole wrote:
>
>>At 11:56 AM -0600 12/7/07, Darren McLaughlin wrote:
>>>Is dovecot the right choice for this problem?
>>>
>>>I have a shared server with verio.  I have one particular client
>>>that sends and receives numerous large emails, and those emails were
>>>causing me to run out of processes on my verio server, and basically
>>>slow things down a great deal due to the shared mail queue.  Verio
>>>suggested Dovecot to reduce server load and allow this one client to
>>>have less problems with sending and receiving email.  Does this
>>>sound logical to anyone in the know?
>>
>>It does not sound right. Dovecot is not involved in sending mail. It
>>never comes anywhere near the mail queue.
>>
>>It does sound about par for the course for Verio support though. Spot on.
>>--
>>Bill Cole
>>bill at scconsult.com
>>
>>
>>
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>Darren McLaughlin
>Mindstream Technologies
>"Business Technology Consulting"
>
>C: (217) 841-5167
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-- 
Bill Cole
bill at scconsult.com