[Dovecot] Doubts about dsync, mdbox, SIS

[Jan-Frode Myklebust]

I've been running continous dsync backups of our Maildirs for a few
weeks now, with the destination dsync server using mdbox and SIS. The
idea was that the destination server would act as a warm copy of 
all our active users data.

The active servers are using Maildir, and has:

	$ df -h /usr/local/atmail/users/
	Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
	/dev/atmailusers       14T   12T  2.2T  85% /usr/local/atmail/users
	$ df -hi /usr/local/atmail/users/
	Filesystem            Inodes   IUsed   IFree IUse% Mounted on
	/dev/atmailusers        145M    113M     33M   78% /usr/local/atmail/users

very little of this is compressed (zlib plugin enabled during christmas).

I'm surprised that the destination server is so large, was expecting zlib and
mdbox and SIS would compress it down to much less than what we're seeing 
(12TB -> 5TB):

	$ df -h /srv/mailbackup
	Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
	/dev/mapper/mailbackupvg-mailbackuplv
                      5.7T  4.8T  882G  85% /srv/mailbackup

Lots and lots of the attachement storage is duplicated into identical files,
instead of hard linked.

When running "doveadm purge -u $user", we're seeing lots of 

	Error: unlink(/srv/mailbackup/attachments/c3/17/c317b32b97688c16859956f11b803e3bba434349-057274283bb51f4f917e0000bf34f6ab) failed: No such file or directory

"/srv/mailbackup/attachments/c3/17/c317b32b97688c16859956f11b803e3bba434349-057274283bb51f4f917e0000bf34f6ab" is
missing, but there are 205 other copies of this file named
/srv/mailbackup/attachments/c3/17/c317b32b97688c16859956f11b803e3bba434349-* with
identical sha1sum.

Also we see corrupted indexes during the purge. This makes me quite uncertain
if dsync is a workable backup solution.. or if we can trust mdboxes.  

Also on the source side, during dsync, we see too many problems. Some samples:

	Error: Mailboxes don't have unique GUIDs: 08b46439069d3d4db0490000e671bf84 is shared by INBOX and INBOX
	Error: command BOX-LIST failed
	Error: Worker server's mailbox iteration failed
	Error: read() from worker server failed: EOF

	Error: Failed to sync mailbox INBOX.ferie 2006.: Invalid mailbox name
	Error: read() from proxy client failed: EOF

	Error: Unexpected finish reply: 1  596fec275888dbd89f6d1f5356c22db6        3720    0       \dsync-expunged         0
	Error: Unexpected reply from server: 1     12200572a70726fca946da6f9378dc03        3721    0       \dsync-expunged         0

	Error: Failed to sync mailbox INBOX.INBOX.Gerda: Mailbox doesn't exist: INBOX/Gerda
	Error: command BOX-LIST failed

	Error: read() failed: Broken pipe
	Panic: file dsync-worker-local.c: line 1678 (local_worker_save_msg_continue): assertion failed: (ret == -1)
	Error: Raw backtrace: /usr/lib64/dovecot/libdovecot.so.0 [0x367703c680] -> /usr/lib64/dovecot/libdovecot.so.0(default_fatal_handler+0x35) [0x367703c765] -> /usr/lib64/dovecot/libdovecot.so.0 [0x367703bb93] -> /usr/bin/dsync [0x40f48d] -> /usr/bin/dsync [0x40f589] -> /usr/bin/dsync(dsync_worker_msg_save+0x8e) [0x40eb3e] -> /usr/bin/dsync [0x40d71a] -> /usr/bin/dsync [0x40cdbf] -> /usr/bin/dsync [0x40d105] -> /usr/lib64/dovecot/libdovecot.so.0(io_loop_call_io+0x48) [0x3677047278] -> /usr/lib64/dovecot/libdovecot.so.0(io_loop_handler_run+0xd5) [0x36770485c5] -> /usr/lib64/dovecot/libdovecot.so.0(io_loop_run+0x2d) [0x367704720d] -> /usr/lib64/dovecot/libdovecot.so.0(master_service_run+0x13) [0x3677035a83] -> /usr/bin/dsync(main+0x71e) [0x406c4e] -> /lib64/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xf4) [0x3e3941d994] -> /usr/bin/dsync [0x406369]


Do you have any idea for what our problems might be? Should we:

	avoid SIS ?
	avoid doing Maildir on one side and mdbox on the other?
	try other dovecot version for dsync?
	anything else?


   -jf

------------- destination server, running dovecot v2.0.14 --------
mail_attachment_dir = /srv/mailbackup/attachments
mail_location = mdbox:~/mdbox
mail_plugins = zlib
mdbox_rotate_size = 5 M
namespace {
  inbox = yes
  location = 
  prefix = INBOX.
  separator = .
  type = private
}
passdb {
  driver = static
}
plugin {
  zlib_save = gz
  zlib_save_level = 9
}
protocols = 
service auth-worker {
  user = $default_internal_user
}
service auth {
  unix_listener auth-userdb {
    mode = 0600
    user = mailbackup
  }
}
ssl = no
userdb {
  args = home=/srv/mailbackup/%256Hu/%d/%n
  driver = static
}
-------------/destination server --------


  -jf