On Mon, 25 Feb 2008, David Morsberger wrote:
-rw------- 1 graphica graphica 2161936035 Feb 25 20:42 INBOX
That points to what happened.
You let your mbx-format INBOX get above 2GB. mbx format uses system calls
that are limited to 2GB. The mbx format was designed in 1995 at a time
when a "very large" mailbox was something like 100MB.
This is a known restriction in mbx format; and as there is a better
alternative (see below) will probably be perfmanent.
\-rw------- 1 graphica graphica 2786848686 Feb 25 21:10 Sent Items
Your mbx-format Sent Items is in a similar situation, although if you
haven't accessed it with imapd it may not be corrupted yet.
25-Feb-2008 20:00008b1d500,12304;000000000000-00008b1d
If this is really at the start of the mailbox, then the 2K mailbox header
is gone. That's a start of message header.
I suggest splitting up the file into multiple files, ideally so that each
split file begins with a start of message header line. Get a 2K header
from an empty mbx format file, and prepend it to the split files.
That ought to get your messages readable again.
Once you do that, you need to reassess your mail store and usage patterns.
2GB is too large for a flat file format. Either you need to make sure
that you keep your INBOX (and Sent Items) mailboxes smaller, or you need
to use a different, non flat file, mailbox format.
Fortunately, there is such a better format in UW imapd. It is called mix
format, and it was created to be the replacement for mbx format. mix is
an indexed directory format, albeit less extreme than the one-message per
one-file that you find with maildir.
There are other benefits to upgrading to mix besides handling larger
mailboxes. It is generally quite a bit faster than mbx, and your backups
such run much better.
If you haven't already, I suggest that you upgrade to the latest imap-2007
version of UW imapd before switching to mix format.
-- Mark --
http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
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