Version controlled (git) Maildir generated by Dovecot

Adam adam.ranek at seznam.cz
Tue Oct 6 20:21:33 EEST 2020 

Hi Everybody,

I'd like to start archiving e-mails by moving them to a server with running Dovecot.

I installed "dovecot-core" and "dovecot-imapd" (version 2.3.4.1) on Debian 10.

One of a few configurations I made is to use Maildir:

# grep '^mail_location = ' /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf
mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir

I successfully moved some e-mails (at this moment it's just a test) to subfolders that describe a year of the backup.

I'd like to start using git on the whole Maildir. After going through the Maildir directory and subdirectories I realized that Dovecot saves some extra files that I might not need to backup (version control).

Based on my understanding and after reading https://wiki.dovecot.org/IndexFiles I believe that the only files I need to archive are files in "cur/" directory and these files should start with Unix time.

So I decided to write a ".gitignore" whitelist that will include only files in "cur/" that start with a number:

# cat .gitignore
-----------------------------------
!.gitignore
!*/
!/Maildir/cur/[0-9]*
!/Maildir/*/cur/[0-9]*
-----------------------------------

and it's working:

# git add . --dry-run
-----------------------------------
add '.gitignore'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M110302P17113.mail1,S=8066,W=8276:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M134554P17113.mail1,S=8024,W=8234:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M157569P17113.mail1,S=8005,W=8215:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M180965P17113.mail1,S=8021,W=8231:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M205518P17113.mail1,S=8017,W=8227:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M355896P17113.mail1,S=8042,W=8252:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M52133P17113.mail1,S=8053,W=8263:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M555847P17113.mail1,S=8029,W=8239:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M581502P17113.mail1,S=8047,W=8257:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M606379P17113.mail1,S=8044,W=8254:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M628850P17113.mail1,S=8036,W=8246:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M657431P17113.mail1,S=8069,W=8279:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M681265P17113.mail1,S=8039,W=8249:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M706585P17113.mail1,S=8073,W=8283:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M730046P17113.mail1,S=8059,W=8269:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M753487P17113.mail1,S=8034,W=8244:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M776202P17113.mail1,S=8019,W=8229:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M799238P17113.mail1,S=8085,W=8295:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M822106P17113.mail1,S=8081,W=8291:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M844397P17113.mail1,S=8102,W=8312:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M867952P17113.mail1,S=7964,W=8174:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M889882P17113.mail1,S=7992,W=8202:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M912429P17113.mail1,S=8005,W=8215:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M935326P17113.mail1,S=8027,W=8237:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M959570P17113.mail1,S=8037,W=8247:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986418.M987388P17113.mail1,S=8018,W=8228:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M112704P17113.mail1,S=8044,W=8254:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M13262P17113.mail1,S=8025,W=8235:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M321294P17113.mail1,S=8012,W=8222:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M347297P17113.mail1,S=8014,W=8224:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M36960P17113.mail1,S=8037,W=8247:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M371029P17113.mail1,S=8005,W=8215:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M395270P17113.mail1,S=8024,W=8234:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M418277P17113.mail1,S=8046,W=8256:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M441021P17113.mail1,S=8047,W=8257:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M466329P17113.mail1,S=8025,W=8235:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M491134P17113.mail1,S=8038,W=8248:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M515650P17113.mail1,S=8046,W=8256:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M539950P17113.mail1,S=8017,W=8227:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M563073P17113.mail1,S=7983,W=8193:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M587009P17113.mail1,S=7963,W=8173:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M611652P17113.mail1,S=7994,W=8204:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M65180P17113.mail1,S=8015,W=8225:2,S'
add 'Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/cur/1601986419.M90376P17113.mail1,S=8036,W=8246:2,S'
-----------------------------------

Would you be so kind and confirm that this is all I need to archive and that Dovecot will/can re-create all files ignored by git?

For example based on my research the following files / directories would be ignored:
- new/ (empty dir)
- tmp/ (empty dir)
- maildirfolder/ (dir with maildirfolder file)
- dovecot-uidlist
- dovecot-uidvalidity
- dovecot-uidvalidity.5f7c4f24
- dovecot.index
- dovecot.index.cache
- dovecot.index.log
- dovecot.index.log.2
- dovecot.list.index
- dovecot.list.index.log
- dovecot.list.index.log.2
- dovecot.mailbox.log


In case of my test:
# git status --ignored
-----------------------------------
On branch master

No commits yet

Untracked files:
  (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)

        .gitignore
        Maildir/

Ignored files:
  (use "git add -f <file>..." to include in what will be committed)

        Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/dovecot-uidlist
        Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/dovecot.index
        Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/dovecot.index.cache
        Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/dovecot.index.log
        Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/dovecot.index.log.2
        Maildir/.INBOX.years.2020.family/maildirfolder
        Maildir/dovecot-uidlist
        Maildir/dovecot-uidvalidity
        Maildir/dovecot-uidvalidity.5f7c4f24
        Maildir/dovecot.index.log
        Maildir/dovecot.list.index
        Maildir/dovecot.list.index.log
        Maildir/dovecot.list.index.log.2
        Maildir/dovecot.mailbox.log
        Maildir/subscriptions

nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)
-----------------------------------

Thank you.

Adam

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