Version controlled (git) Maildir generated by Dovecot
David Myers
david.myers.24j74 at gmail.com
Wed Oct 7 10:42:49 EEST 2020
Hello Adam, and the dovecot list
Just a question, I hate to pollute the thread, so feel free to push these
questions into a new thread if deemed necessary. So as you can guess I'm a
bit of a newb here, so rather obvious questions are about to arrive....
As you are using GIT for your archive (which is a cool idea by the way) I'm
sure you are well aware that not all files types play nicely with version
control, my question therefore is : How do you plan to handle attachments ?
Also, although I appreciate the idea of using git, emails generally don't
'change', but I guess that also depends on how you are storing them (single
email with links to previous / next ... etc, or as a single big file for
each specific thread). Although this is hitting my limits of understanding
for how dovecot works, so I probably need educating on this (a pointer to
the docs would be good).
You seem concerned regarding the files that you are ignoring that you will
need to 'recreate them', so why not do a complete git add . prior to adding
them into the git ignore, then you have an initial state for those files
too.
Final thought, what advantage do you envisage by using git as opposed to
simply using a filter to select the files over a certain age, and place
them into a zipped TAR archive ? Although I guess you could eventually zip
the git archive too, and in the interim it would remain searchable by your
users mail clients whilt in git.
Thanks in advance, and apologies once again for polluting your question
with my own.
David
On Tue, Oct 6, 2020 at 7:22 PM Adam <adam.ranek at seznam.cz> wrote:
> 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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