Hi!
First a little background:
I'm thinking of compressing my Maildir's using dovecot's zlib support, and have
run into a couple of problems.
First of all, my files use the following formats:
1. 1260386673.02.mbox:2,S
2. 1304920966.M241434P17342.mail,W=3152:2,S
As you can see, both lack the S=size basename flag, but the latter does
have W=.
Reading http://wiki.dovecot.org/Plugins/Zlib, I get the impression that I really need S=
in the filenames (.. otherwise there will be problems with quota calculation as
well as other potential random failures.).
I have made a script that compresses my files, adds S=size if it's missing (using
wc -c before gzip), and appends the Z flag. As I understand it, adding S=size will
change the UID of the email, while appending Z won't.
Now for my questions:
1. How crucial is it to have the S= in the basename when using zlib?
The wiki page mentions quota problems, which we're not using, but also random
failures...
2. Would W= suffice in this regard?
I.e. would I be able to compress files of the latter format safely, without
adding S= (only appending the Z flag)?
3. If S=size *is* needed, is there a way to minimize the effect from the mail
client's perspective?
From my testruns, it seems Mutt have no problems after I rename the basename,
but Thunderbird will refetch the emails, and not delete the old ones, showing
duplicate emails.
Refetching emails is not a big problem, I think, but only if the email clients
understand that the old ones doesn't exist anymore.
And if anyone has ideas on how to convert to using zlib without the users
knowing, I would be glad to hear it!
--
Helge Milde
www.monsternett.no
