[Dovecot] graceful failure when some folders are not available...

[bhayden at umn.edu]

Hi folks. Quick question in the hopes that someone knows the answer, before 
I dig in the code some more.

In testing a new setup with some long-term archival mbox-format mailboxes 
stored on an NFS mount, we've found the following: if the mount is 
unavailable for any reason, the user cannot log into their email at all. 
Dovecot says: "stat() failed with mbox foo" and dies. This is coming from 
the mbox sync checks. (It's possible the same happens with a maildir 
folder--I'm just specifying mbox because that's what we've tested with so 
far).

Is there a way to reconfigure this behavior? I could maybe see a fatal 
abort if the inbox is unavailable, but for other folders it seems rather... 
presumptuous. I have to think there's already a way to handle this more 
gracefully in the config and I'm just not seeing it.

Also, does anyone know offhand if this behavior is the same for folders 
that aren't in the default/inbox namespace? That would seem *really* wrong.

Any thoughts? Thanks much,

-Brian