[Dovecot] size of "m.XXX" in mdbox

[Timo Sirainen]

That is weird then.. Have you looked inside these files? Does each one have only a single mail or are there a couple? What Dovecot version? These files were created by dsync I guess? What about the last few files that (I assume) are created by dovecot-lda, are they any bigger?

On 6.1.2011, at 0.47, Joan Moreau wrote:

> # doveconf  | grep mdbox
> mdbox_preallocate_space = no
> mdbox_rotate_interval = 0
> mdbox_rotate_size = 2 M
> 
> 
> On Thu, 6 Jan 2011 00:40:44 +0200, Timo Sirainen wrote:
> 
>> What does "doveconf | grep mdbox" say? This isn't normal..
>> 
>> On 6.1.2011, at 0.33, Joan Moreau wrote:
>> 
>>> so, why after a dsync from sdbox to mdbox, I have 100 000's of files of
>>> about 20k ? (and not 2MB !) -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 21K 2011-01-03
>>> 02:47 m.1 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 17K 2011-01-03 02:47 m.10
>>> -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 20K 2011-01-03 02:47 m.100 -rw-r--r-- 1
>>> mailusers mail 20K 2011-01-03 02:51 m.1000 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail
>>> 14K 2011-01-03 03:35 m.10000 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 19K 2011-01-03
>>> 09:04 m.100000 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 174K 2011-01-03 09:04
>>> m.100001 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 175K 2011-01-03 09:04 m.100002
>>> -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 19K 2011-01-03 09:04 m.100003 -rw-r--r-- 1
>>> mailusers mail 19K 2011-01-03 09:04 m.100004 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers
>>> mail 19K 2011-01-03 09:04 m.100005 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 17K
>>> 2011-01-03 09:04 m.100006 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 19K 2011-01-03
>>> 09:04 m.100007 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 18K 2011-01-03 09:04
>>> m.100008 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 19K 2011-01-03 09:04 m.100009
>>> -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 14K 2011-01-03 03:35 m.10001 -rw-r--r-- 1
>>> mailusers mail 20K 2011-01-03 09:04 m.100010 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers
>>> mail 19K 2011-01-03 09:04 m.100011 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 18K
>>> 2011-01-03 09:05 m.100012 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 17K 2011-01-03
>>> 09:05 m.100013 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 20K 2011-01-03 09:05
>>> m.100014 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 173K 2011-01-03 09:05 m.100015
>>> -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 18K 2011-01-03 09:05 m.100016 -rw-r--r-- 1
>>> mailusers mail 19K 2011-01-03 09:05 m.100017 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers
>>> mail 18K 2011-01-03 09:05 m.100018 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 18K
>>> 2011-01-03 09:05 m.100019 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 14K 2011-01-03
>>> 03:35 m.10002 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 177K 2011-01-03 09:05
>>> m.100020 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 20K 2011-01-03 09:05 m.100021
>>> -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 18K 2011-01-03 09:05 m.100022 -rw-r--r-- 1
>>> mailusers mail 52K 2011-01-03 09:05 m.100023 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers
>>> mail 18K 2011-01-03 09:05 m.100024 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 177K
>>> 2011-01-03 09:05 m.100025 -rw-r--r-- 1 mailusers mail 19K 2011-01-03
>>> 09:05 m.100026 On Thu, 6 Jan 2011 00:15:30 +0200, Timo Sirainen wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On 6.1.2011, at 0.07, Joan Moreau wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> How to tune the size of each "m.xxx" file in mdbox format , in
>>>>> order to optimize the ratio size/number of files ? (I can see for
>>>>> instance more than 100 000 files in one directory due to very large
>>>>> mailbox size)
>>>> mdbox_rotate_size setting sets the max size of one mdbox file.
>>>> There's really no ratio setting.. It would be difficult since as more
>>>> messages get added more files would have to be merged, which would
>>>> generate extra disk I/O, and typically people care about disk I/O
>>>> rather than the inode count.
>>>> 
>>>>> If such parameter exists, what is the typical value ?
>>>> Default is 2 MB files.
>