""Kevin Baker"" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:

> I was wondering where things were on replacing auto
> incrementing message id's with a GUID [unique_id].
> 
> The response I got on the other dbmail list was that IMAP
> requires a sequential message id. Is this RFC or an actual
> requirement? I would think that this would be a major
> problem for scalability with any email system bound to
> this. We certainly don't use sequential ID's in any of our
> apps any more for that reason.

Yep, that's exactly the problem. The IMAP RFC requires that the sequence
number be unique and always incrementing. With respect to RFC and "actual
requirement" the RFC language used in this case is MUST, I believe. That
makes it a firm requirement. Even if it were a SHOULD, if all other
implementations have this behaviour, and client programs expect it, then
it becomes a de facto MUST and we'd have to abide by it for
interoperability's sake.

> Anyway, I have been reading through the archives and found a
> thread from a year ago that seems to touch on it.
> 
> [Dbmail] MySQL Load Balancing & Failover
> http://tinyurl.com/3m6mf
> 
> The advantage of course would be non-colliding message
> id's in a server cluster with mysql multi-master
> replication.
> 
> I guess I'm curious how difficult it would be to patch the
> system for it. I haven't spent much time with the code,
> but couldn't the unique_id be used instead of the existing
> ID.

If we can find another way to comply with the RFC besides automatic
database sequence numbers, we will definitely go for it. Any ideas,
however crazy, are welcome... although the really crazy ones will probably
just be used to help come up with simple straightforward plans ;-)

Aaron

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