Using NFS to extend local email storage

[Ted Hatfield]

On Sun, 18 Oct 2020, Sven Hartge wrote:

> On 18.10.20 19:50, Maciej Kokoci?ski wrote:
>
>> Now, my idea is to set up an NFS volume on the NAS, and configure the 
>> cloud-based server as the client. I would like to store only the most 
>> recent emails on the main server, and keep the whole data set on the NAS.
>
> Doing NFS over the Internet is such a bad idea. Don't do it.
>
> Also don't do NFS over a WAN link inside a VPN. The latency will kill you.
>
> In addition to that, the flakiness of the on-prem NAS will hard-lock any 
> process accessing or trying to access anything on the NFS share during times 
> where it is not available.
>
> This setup would severely degrade not only the performance but also the 
> availability of your mails.
>
> Do not do this.
>
> In your case I only see the option to either deal with the increased costs, 
> move to a different ISP which is cheaper or move to a hosted mail solution, 
> which may also be cheaper.
>
> But jerry-rigging an NFS share on a flaky box over a WAN link is such a bad 
> idea. Please, reconsider.
>
> Gr??e,
> Sven.
>
>

Sven is correct,  NFS over the internet is not a great idea.

You might want to look into moving the access from the server to the 
client.  Setup an imap server at the location where you host the NAS and 
configure the client with a second imap connection where older archived 
email is stored.  Isn't that one of the strengths of the imap protocol. 
The ability to access multiple imap folders from multiple locations.

It's easy to do with standalone clients although I'm not sure how much 
trouble it would be to hack your webmail software to include a sedondary 
imap profile.

Ted.