[Dovecot] What best decision to make for flatfiles or SQL when I use Dovecot2 + Postfix together?

[Simon Brereton]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: dovecot-bounces at dovecot.org [mailto:dovecot-
> bounces at dovecot.org] On Behalf Of terryjames9461 at mm.st
> Hello Patrick,
> 
> On Tuesday, September 27, 2011 9:41 PM, "Patrick Domack"
> <patrickdk at patrickdk.com> wrote:
> > It all depends on how much time and energy you want to spend in
> > setting it up, vs the flexibility you in vision you need later.
> 
> This is the intersection of the decision.  I still am no sure if that
> simple flatfile dream of one-instance data can be done.  I think I am
> going to have to try it a number of times becuase I dont see a
> certain answer, yes or no.
> 
> Can you may be explain more what you do with your case that you dump
> SQL to flatfile?  I don't see why that would ever be a benefit and am
> interested in understanding that.
> 
> I think I am worried about using SQL a bit because it is not
> something that I think I can edit so quickly as I do text files.  And
> also like you others, losing data when things are corrupted.

I have reasonable evidence that I'm by no means a sys-admin or even a linux Guru.  But for the past 5 years, I've managed a system like you're trying to build - Postfix/Amavis/SpamAssassin/Dovecot (until recently I was running Courier for the MDA) with an SQL backend.  It's never let me down, gives me a web interface (with PHPMyAdmin) to make changes, has 7 domains and about 300 user accounts.

Once the set-up is done, you can save a file with a few queries or even build a php page to make common changes (adding domains/users, etc).  Backup is easy.  For the record, I've never used Postfixadmin - although I hear great things about it.  Like the others, I'd recommend going the SQL route - it's easier to maintain and upgrade and it scales.  If you don't need it to scale you've lost nothing because it uses virtually no resources, and if you do, you have it.

Simon