sdbox filesystem backup potential excludes

[Aki Tuomi]

On 14.08.2018 21:23, Daniel Miller wrote:
> On 8/14/2018 12:55 AM, Aki Tuomi wrote:
>>
>> On 13.08.2018 19:51, Daniel Miller wrote:
>>> When doing a filesystem backup of an moderate sdbox mailstore (300GB)
>>> - are there any files that can be safely excluded from the backup?
>>> Like *.log or *.backup?  Or are they all "vital" for recovery?
>>>
>>> I'm already excluding the sdbox/virtual folders as it looks like they
>>> get created and updated as needed.
>>>
>> Hi, can you provide 'doveconf -n'. sdbox/virtual folders are not part of
>> sdbox mail format. In general, if you want to avoid data loss, you can
>> only omit dovecot.index.cache files, but omitting these can come with
>> high impact when they are regenerated. Omitting dovecot.index.log or
>> dovecot.index will cause loss of flags.
>>
>> Aki
>
> I have virtual folders enabled & defined.
>
> What does "high impact" mean?  A few seconds to a few minutes on
> initial mailbox opening for regeneration?  I can live with that as
> this is for emergency backup/restore purposes.

It means there will be nothing cached, it depends on your users and what
they do. If they only open first 20 mails it will not be that bad.

>
> mmap_disable = yes

If you are not using NFS, don't disable mmap.

>   mailbox virtual/Flagged {
>     comment = All my flagged messages
>     special_use = \Flagged
>   }

You can't "alias" folders like this.

> namespace virtual {
>   list = children
>   location = virtual:/var/mail/%d/%n/sdbox/virtual
>   prefix = virtual/
>   separator = /
>   subscriptions = no
> }
 
You should really not put the virtual indexes inside sdbox directory,
this can confuse sdbox. You should put this under
/var/mail/%d/%n/virtual instead.

Aki