Sorry, should have been a little clearer on that point. I will be using Postfix as the mail server. So I will be retrieving email from the SMTP server via POP3 or IMAP. I'm not really looking for help on the database structure, I've looked over the dbmail structure. I would want to retrieve all the header information, I would store the headers in a separate table so I could purge it periodically.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.



On Feb 10, 2005, at 12:35 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Brent Baisley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 02/10/2005 12:21:38 PM:

I am looking to store all incoming emails into a MySQL database. I've
looked into dbmail, but can't get it to compile under Mac OSX (I posted
a message on that list). I was wondering if anyone could point me in
another direction to use MySQL as an email message store. I don't need
a webmail interface, just a way of getting messages from a mail server
to a MySQL database. Preferably as a direct transfer, but it could be a
script that runs periodically.
Currently it seems the best path is using Perl, but I would think this
has been done before, just can't find it on google.


Thanks
--
Brent Baisley
Systems Architect
Landover Associates, Inc.
Search & Advisory Services for Advanced Technology Environments
p: 212.759.6400/800.759.0577


--

How to do what you ask depends on how I read your question. When you say
"store incoming emails" does that mean that you are writing an SMTP server
that will act as a mail destination or are you retrieving mail from an
SMTP server via POP3 or IMAP or some other mail retrieval protocol?


In either case your code ends up writing the contents of the message to a
MySQL database rather than to a local file. What you need to decide is how
many pieces you want to break the message into (how much metadata you want
to extract from each message). Your database structure will depend on your
information needs and how you intend to use the emails once you store them
however I can almost guarantee that the body of each message will need to
be stored in a TEXT field.


You will probably run out of room faster by storing whole messages in your
database than if you were storing them as files on the hard drive.
Capacity control is definitely something you want to consider in your
project design. You may want to store the messages (or parts of them) as
files and keep just the metadata in the database, but again that goes to
your intended purpose for this project.


Shawn Green
Database Administrator
Unimin Corporation - Spruce Pine


--
Brent Baisley
Systems Architect
Landover Associates, Inc.
Search & Advisory Services for Advanced Technology Environments
p: 212.759.6400/800.759.0577


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