email location - files or sql

[Robert Moskowitz]

On 2/25/22 12:51, Chris Bennett wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 23, 2022 at 08:48:11PM -0500, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
>>
>> I liked Maildir at the time and still do.  Only a 1,000+ emails a day.  My
>> wife keeps a lot (10K messages) on the server, I keep all of my various
>> boxes on the server small.  So do my other users.
>>
>>> Personally, I would not use a relational database as a mail store unless
>>> specifically required by the mail system of your choice. Email is not
>>> organised in a way that benefits from a RDB.
>> I was there for the beginning of RDB.  Almost had NOMAD shoved down my
>> throat (UNIVAC)  and did work with RIM (BCS) then R:Base.  Was gamma release
>> site of DB2, where we worked out how to do a UNION which was not supported
>> in the original design.  I have seen email systems that stuff the messages
>> into RDB and really wonder if the hammer really fits.
>>
> What is the opinion on repairs to problems that occur?
> Easier to fix in a DB? That does give a simple set of fixed points and
> dates to make repairs simple.
>
> I backup into a tar.gz and that preserves a timepoint, but how in the
> heck could a fix a problem that occurs? That seems like a nightmare
> problem.
>
> Does anyone have any method to do that? I'd love to know that if it
> exists.
> I love Maildir, but the backups are very large. I don't have a huge set
> of emails, but downloading a copy to home instead of my other server is
> a big task.
> Since I use a single ISP and once had a company shut down all servers, which
> makes me nervous.
>
I have used a simple rsync with --delete to maintain a backup of the 
maildir directories.  rsync is run via cron.  You stop postfix, wait a 
bit, rsync, then restart postfix.

But recently, partly to do migration, one person pointed out that he 
uses Dovecot on the backup server to just use imap to replicate the mail 
store.  I have to learn how to do this...