[Dovecot] MySQL as a storage only.?

[Timo Sirainen]

On Dec 23, 2008, at 4:51 AM, R A wrote:

> Romer Ventura wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>>    I was wondering is I could use MySQL as storage only..? Meaning  
>> that no
>> user information, other than the obvious email address associated  
>> with an
>> specific email so that each email can be showed to the right user,  
>> will be
>> stored in a MySQL database instead of /home/vmail/DOMAIN/<user>
>>
>>    Would I get any advantages.? Would it be better, faster?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>>
> I think IF it would be supported in a future version it would be a  
> great
> addition.

I did already start it once but didn't get it very well working. It's  
a very low priority for me to finish it. Maybe once everything else is  
done and I can't really think of anything better to do.. Of course  
anyone else is free to implement it. http://dovecot.org/list/dovecot/2007-November/026632.html

> Especially if you try
> to implement cloud-like services, where you have the possibility of
> links temporarily going down between servers, and mail can come in to
> any point, and be retrieved or moved at any point.
>
> You really need transactions then, to track every mails change in  
> time,
> and to replicate those when you get connectivity back. You "can"
> possibly do it by tracking dovecot logs and do the replication  
> yourself
> with scripts, but using a database would probably be easier here.

I've also planned easy replication support for Dovecot. Also I don't  
think doing the SQL replication correctly and without losing any data  
on error conditions is as easy as you think.