[Dovecot] Indexes.

Robert Schetterer robert at schetterer.org
Thu Dec 2 16:09:55 EET 2010


Am 02.12.2010 14:53, schrieb Henrique Fernandes:
> I have abou 9000 clients.

many clients
> 
> 500 GB of storage used

small store

anyway you shouldnt run into problems with that
> 
> About the mail option at ocfs2 store creating, i guess the other guy
> that format the storage system did not use. 

what a pitty , mail option help with small files performance like
indexes and mail etc as far i remember
> 
> We are looking into ocfs2 1.6 that was out few months ago. But we are
> not able to get it running on or Centos5.5 yet.

hm centos is more redhat style
i speculate Red Hat GFS would have been the better choice
is there a list at centos/redhat/ocfs you might can asked about bugs
with your ocfs2/distro combination ?

> 
> Are you talking abvout this optimizations?
> 
>     Dovecot supports reading a few fields from the <base filename>:
> 
>         *
> 
>           ,S=<size>: <size> contains the file size. Getting the size
>           from the filename avoids doing a stat(), which may improve the
>           performance. This is especially useful with Maildir++ quota
>           <http://wiki.dovecot.org/Quota/Maildir>.
> 
>         *
> 
>           ,W=<vsize>: <vsize> contains the file's RFC822.SIZE, ie. the
>           file size with linefeeds being CR+LF characters. If the
>           message was stored with CR+LF linefeeds, <size> and <vsize>
>           are the same. Setting this may give a small speedup because
>           now Dovecot doesn't need to calculate the size itself.
> 
>     A maildir filename with those fields would look something like:
>     1035478339.27041_118.foo.org
>     <http://1035478339.27041_118.foo.org>,S=1000,W=1030:2,S

as far i remember keep close to nfs recommands

http://wiki2.dovecot.org/NFS

FS caching problems

NFS caching is a big problem when multiple computers are accessing the
same mailbox simultaneously. The best fix for this is to prevent it from
happening. Configure your setup so that a user always gets redirected to
the same server (unless it's down). This also means that mail deliveries
must be done by the same server, or alternatively it shouldn't update
index files.

Dovecot flushes NFS caches when needed if you set mail_nfs_storage=yes,
but unfortunately this doesn't work 100%, so you can get random errors.

Disabling NFS attribute cache helps a lot in getting rid of caching
related errors, but this makes the performance MUCH worse and increases
the load on NFS server. This can usually be done by giving actimeo=0 or
noac mount option.

Index files

As described above, it's better to redirect users to the same server
whenever possible. If you do this, it might also be a good idea to keep
index files stored locally in that server. If user gets occasionally
redirected to another server, the indexes will then be created locally
there. This isn't a problem. However you might want to create a cronjob
to delete old index directories.

If you choose to keep the index files stored in NFS, you'll need to set
mmap_disable=yes. Both the mmap_disable and indexing to NFS will result
in a notable performance hit. If you're not running lockd you'll have to
set lock_method=dotlock, but this degrades performance. Note that many
NFS installations have problems with lockd. If you're beginning to get
all kinds of locking related errors, try if the problems go away with
dotlocking.

-------------

but i agree, there should be more info with cluster file systems in the wiki

perhaps Timo has time to send recommands by mail, i am not sure that
mine are optimal ( whatever i have no problems yet )

> 
> 
> I will try send an image on the load of machine.
> 
> 
> []'sf.rique
> 
> 
> On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 11:25 AM, Robert Schetterer
> <robert at schetterer.org <mailto:robert at schetterer.org>> wrote:
> 
>     Am 02.12.2010 14:10, schrieb Henrique Fernandes:
>     > With recomendation settings do you have ?
> 
>     http://wiki2.dovecot.org/MailLocation/SharedDisk
> 
>     and a few more optimizes about maildir
>     >
>     > how many clients ?
> 
>     i started the server not long ago so they are less yet ( about 100
>     maildirs )
>     but i have my own account in it which has massive mails ( 10 GB store
>     with over 1000 mails daily in out , and perhaps 10000 mails in store)
> 
>     >
>     > sorry, i did not say i use dovecot 2.0.6
> 
>     looks fine, update to 2.0.8 if ready
> 
> 
>     did you use the mail option at ocfs2 store creation ?
> 
>     what os/distro do you use , i remember bugs with ocfs with some distro
>     versions
> 
>     >
>     > []'sf.rique
>     >
>     >
>     > On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 10:40 AM, Robert Schetterer
>     > <robert at schetterer.org <mailto:robert at schetterer.org>
>     <mailto:robert at schetterer.org <mailto:robert at schetterer.org>>> wrote:
>     >
>     >     Am 02.12.2010 13:13, schrieb Henrique Fernandes:
>     >     > Hello people!
>     >     >
>     >     > I have huge problems with IO wait becase dovecot configured
>     to use
>     >     maildir
>     >     > is under OCFS2 1.4.  Now i have an question to OCFS2 each disk
>     >     action is
>     >     > really heavy becaue it has no index.
>     >     >
>     >     > Now i am thinking in what can be done to heltp my system  to use
>     >     less disk.
>     >     >
>     >     > Looking for index and etc in dovecot i found this,   this
>     disables
>     >     the index
>     >     > file on disk and leave it on ram or it disable the index files ?
>     >     >
>     >     > If you really want to, you can also disable the index files
>     >     completely by
>     >     > appending :INDEX=MEMORY
>     >     >
>     >     >
>     >     > I am only trying to get dovecot to work faster. Right now we
>     have
>     >     to waing
>     >     > some seconds to dovecot list all emails or read an email.
>     >     >
>     >     > I am also thinking in right index to an NFS but i don't know if
>     >     this makes
>     >     > any diferences in performance.
>     >     >
>     >     > Thanks to all!
>     >     >
>     >     > I use 3 servres wrinting on OCFS2  one is mailman, and other two
>     >     are to
>     >     > email, I have ipvs to load balance the conections.
>     >     >
>     >     >
>     >     > []'sf.rique
>     >     >
>     >
>     >     hm , i have no problems with ocfs2 (1.4.3-1: amd64  ) on drbd
>     ubuntu
>     >     lucid
>     >     using dovecot vers 2 recommended settings for cluster file systems
>     >     i have my index files in the maildir dir
>     >
>     >     --
>     >     Best Regards
>     >
>     >     MfG Robert Schetterer
>     >
>     >     Germany/Munich/Bavaria
>     >
>     >
> 
> 
>     --
>     Best Regards
> 
>     MfG Robert Schetterer
> 
>     Germany/Munich/Bavaria
> 
> 


-- 
Best Regards

MfG Robert Schetterer

Germany/Munich/Bavaria


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