Mail back-up system
Hi, As a sys-admin, I am often bugged by users who had mistakenly deleted some very important email, and could I recover it from the tape back-up. I try to explain to them that back-up is only run once per 24 hours and maybe their message arrived since the last run, and that tapes are there to recover disk crash, not user bad moves, it still eats up quite some amount of my time (and it is a stupid task). So I came up with a system whereby messages are duplicated on a second server and users can use a web page to browse that second server and recover emails. Kust in case someone maybe interested, the system is explained there: http://www.cs.ait.ac.th/laboratory/email/mailback.shtml Bests, Olivier ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Mail back-up system
That`s preatty interesting.. I read the article and the idea is good. But i would like to know what MTA are you using..In the paper you said that at first the email is strored in Mailbox format. Isn`t that a bottleneck. WHat are the loads of the machines. Thanks On 2/9/06, Olivier Nicole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, > > As a sys-admin, I am often bugged by users who had mistakenly deleted > some very important email, and could I recover it from the tape > back-up. > > I try to explain to them that back-up is only run once per 24 hours > and maybe their message arrived since the last run, and that tapes are > there to recover disk crash, not user bad moves, it still eats up > quite some amount of my time (and it is a stupid task). > > So I came up with a system whereby messages are duplicated on a second > server and users can use a web page to browse that second server and > recover emails. > > Kust in case someone maybe interested, the system is explained there: > > http://www.cs.ait.ac.th/laboratory/email/mailback.shtml > > Bests, > > Olivier > ___ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to " > [EMAIL PROTECTED]" > ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Mail back-up system
> I read the article and the idea is good. But i would like to know what MTA > are you using..In the paper you said that at first the email is strored in > Mailbox format. Isn`t that a bottleneck. WHat are the loads of the machines= Considering we have only 200 users and 3000 messages per day, whatever would do. MTA is sendmail/milter. I plan to change that mailbox thing when I get budget for a new machine to play with (I don't want to take the risk to break the working configuration). Bests, Olivier ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Mail back-up system
Olivier Nicole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > I read the article and the idea is good. But i would like to know what MTA > > are you using..In the paper you said that at first the email is strored in > > Mailbox format. Isn`t that a bottleneck. WHat are the loads of the machines= > > Considering we have only 200 users and 3000 messages per day, whatever > would do. > > MTA is sendmail/milter. > > I plan to change that mailbox thing when I get budget for a new > machine to play with (I don't want to take the risk to break the > working configuration). Mailbox format might not be a bottleneck in this application. It's fairly efficient at appending new messages, and that is the only common operation being performed on these backup mail spools. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Mail back-up system
> Olivier Nicole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >> > I read the article and the idea is good. But i would like to know what >> MTA >> > are you using..In the paper you said that at first the email is >> strored in >> > Mailbox format. Isn`t that a bottleneck. WHat are the loads of the >> machines= >> >> Considering we have only 200 users and 3000 messages per day, whatever >> would do. >> >> MTA is sendmail/milter. >> >> I plan to change that mailbox thing when I get budget for a new >> machine to play with (I don't want to take the risk to break the >> working configuration). > > Mailbox format might not be a bottleneck in this application. It's > fairly efficient at appending new messages, and that is the only > common operation being performed on these backup mail spools. I could see this as an advantage of the Maildirs format. Since every mail is stored in its own file (versus concatenation in Mbox), it's much cheaper to backup. Just copy all the new/touched files, not all your mail. I just have a second disk on the server that I rsync everything to on an hourly basis. I use Matt Simerson's excellent Mail Toaster scripts for FreeBSD, which create a full mail server using vpopmail, courier, maildirs, spam/virus filtering, webmail. If you are switching to Maildirs anyway, I recommend trying it out. http://www.tnpi.biz/internet/mail/toaster/ -Rafi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Mail back-up system
> >> Considering we have only 200 users and 3000 messages per day, whatever > >> would do. > >> > >> MTA is sendmail/milter. > >> > >> I plan to change that mailbox thing when I get budget for a new > >> machine to play with (I don't want to take the risk to break the > >> working configuration). > > > > Mailbox format might not be a bottleneck in this application. It's > > fairly efficient at appending new messages, and that is the only > > common operation being performed on these backup mail spools. > > I could see this as an advantage of the Maildirs format. > > Since every mail is stored in its own file (versus concatenation in Mbox), > it's much cheaper to backup. Just copy all the new/touched files, not all > your mail. Yes, that's a good point. Because these files are *already* backups, I assumed that they wouldn't be backed up themselves, but that may well not be the case. The other approach is the one I use for a lot of automatic archives on my own system; rotate the files on an appropriate schedule. [Where "appropriate" is an administrative call, but probably related to the backup schedule.] > I just have a second disk on the server that I rsync everything to on an > hourly basis. That doesn't solve the original poster's mail backup problem, though. In fact, the original problem from this thread is different than any other kind of backup issue I had considered before. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Mail back-up system
> Mailbox format might not be a bottleneck in this application. It's > fairly efficient at appending new messages, and that is the only > common operation being performed on these backup mail spools. The application is using maildir (that's the normal email server that is using mailbox). Maildir because it is esaier to expunge oldest emails to free some disk space and because thetape backup is cheaper when it come sto incremental. Olivier ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Mail back-up system
> I just have a second disk on the server that I rsync everything to on an > hourly basis. That would not solve the "oops I deleted that VERY IMPORTANT email, where I can get it back?" question. My goal is not high availability, but offering the user a way to undelete emails. > I use Matt Simerson's excellent Mail Toaster scripts for FreeBSD, which > create a full mail server using vpopmail, courier, maildirs, spam/virus > filtering, webmail. If you are switching to Maildirs anyway, I recommend > trying it out. > > http://www.tnpi.biz/internet/mail/toaster/ Thanks for that link, I'll keepit at hand. Olivier ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Mail back-up system
> > Since every mail is stored in its own file (versus concatenation in Mbox), > > it's much cheaper to backup. Just copy all the new/touched files, not all > > your mail. > Yes, that's a good point. Because these files are *already* backups, > I assumed that they wouldn't be backed up themselves, but that may > well not be the case. Actually, as I have an Amanda server floating around, I also do tape archive of the back-up :)) Olivier ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Mail back-up system
On Feb 9, 2006, at 6:59 PM, Olivier Nicole wrote: I just have a second disk on the server that I rsync everything to on an hourly basis. That would not solve the "oops I deleted that VERY IMPORTANT email, where I can get it back?" question. My goal is not high availability, but offering the user a way to undelete emails. I guess if they had deleted it before the next rsync, you could just copy the individual mails back to the main, or have a script/trigger to do that. However, in this case, it sounds like error exists between keyboard and chair... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Mail back-up system
> I guess if they had deleted it before the next rsync, you could just > copy the individual mails back to the main, or have a script/trigger > to do that. What if they deleted the email before it got a chance to get synched? > However, in this case, it sounds like error exists between keyboard > and chair... But that is of course the kind of problem I want to address :) Olivier ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
