Re: Replacing delivery method...
On Tue, Jan 18, 2000 at 01:59:36PM -0800, Mark Delany wrote: > There is nothing instrinsically wrong with using a database to store email, > but the cost/benefits have to be there and I don't think the original > poster made it clear what cost/benefits would be for his scenario. Actually you're dead right - I guess what M$ is saying is that even they can't use M$-SQL as their backend server - others like Oracle may be fine ;-) -- Cheers Jason Haar Unix/Network Specialist, Trimble NZ Phone: +64 3 3391 377 Fax: +64 3 3391 417
Re: Replacing delivery method...
On Wed, Jan 19, 2000 at 08:51:35AM +1300, Jason Haar wrote: > Just on a related note. > > M$ were intending moving Exchange to M$-SQL (via Transaction Server) - but > gave up that idea as the performance would never be as good. > > I think it would be fair to deduce from that, that a major player in this > market doesn't think SQL is appropriate for Email - draw what you will from > that... Do Oracle store email in their database with 8i? I vaguely thought they did. There is nothing instrinsically wrong with using a database to store email, but the cost/benefits have to be there and I don't think the original poster made it clear what cost/benefits would be for his scenario. Mark.
Re: Replacing delivery method...
Just on a related note. M$ Exchange uses a database to store Email. They go on about how wonderful it is, but from personal experience I can tell you it's a "fair weather friend" - works well when it's going, but when any problems occur - you have no idea where to start looking for a solution. Database corruption is of course the worst thing that can happen you to - sometimes restoring from backup doesn't even help as the DB was corrupted days/weeks earlier but just didn't die until recently :-( Thing is: M$ Exchange _doesn't_ use a SQL server backend - it uses a version of the M$ JET database specifically re-written to efficiently handle Email. M$ were intending moving Exchange to M$-SQL (via Transaction Server) - but gave up that idea as the performance would never be as good. I think it would be fair to deduce from that, that a major player in this market doesn't think SQL is appropriate for Email - draw what you will from that... -- Cheers Jason Haar Unix/Network Specialist, Trimble NZ Phone: +64 3 3391 377 Fax: +64 3 3391 417
Re: Replacing delivery method...
> [using SQL for mail store] > > Wasn't usa.net doing this? I seem to remember seeing a few messages in > the past about this. I don't know about usa.net, but I've been using PostgreSQL to archive a mailing list for some time. In a setting like an archive where you will be performing searches on the data, and would like to refine the search on criteria such as date, time, keywords, subjet, etc., it's just what the doctor ordered. However, for simple mail storage/retrieval, I don't know if it would be such a good idea. One of the largest detriments would be storage space. With PostgreSQL, your database is usually about five times as large as if you had simply stored the data in a text format. If your mail server is handling high amounts of traffic, then five times the disk space, and a higher load on the disk I/O isn't exactly what you want. : )Of course, the overhead in storage space is going to depend on the server in question, but you're never going to break even. The optimal solution is likely going to somewhat resemble an SQL server that is stripped down and optimized only for mail, and with a more streamlined API than SQL. You don't exactly need to do outer joins for POP3 or IMAP, and features like stored procedures and user-defined data types would only be wasted. : ) steve
Re: Replacing delivery method...
[using SQL for mail store] Wasn't usa.net doing this? I seem to remember seeing a few messages in the past about this. Tim
RE: Replacing delivery method...
I dont know to do it. but I think it is could be ok on a system with little users. i.e. If you had email accounts that don't use a system account to acces their email but surely you would have to rewrite half of the POPD and the MTA? Although. + Data Retrieval is a lot faster than Opening and Closing files on accounts with a lot of emails. + No File Locking or DB Locking + Reduces Disk Access - More Space is used up - Complicated - Could be security isssues on pourly planned installations It would be a pain to administer Users. Plus QMail comes with a pukka MTA you would increase the risk of people reading the wrong emails Views? Regards Paul Trippett -Original Message- From: Ondrej Surý [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2000 3:47 PM To: Qmail List Subject: Replacing delivery method... I just want to hear your opinions... How difficult would be to replace qmail-send and qmail-pop3d to put and pull mail to and from database (MySQL)? I don't like idea of overwhelming file system with milion of mails ;-) Or has anyone implemented this? -- Ondrej Sury: [EMAIL PROTECTED], +420602667702 GLOBE Internet s.r.o.: http://www.globe.cz/, [EMAIL PROTECTED], +420233356502 NAJDI.TO; http://najdi.to/, [EMAIL PROTECTED] PRESS.CZ; http://press.cz/, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Replacing delivery method...
Petr Novotny wrote: > > -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- > Hash: SHA1 > > On 18 Jan 00, at 16:46, Ondřej Surý wrote: > > How difficult would be to replace qmail-send and qmail-pop3d to > > put and pull > > mail to and from database (MySQL)? I don't like idea of > > overwhelming file > > system with milion of mails ;-) Or has anyone implemented this? > > Are you talking about final delivery to a MySQL, or /var/qmail/queue > in MySQL. (Or why are you talking about qmail-send.) If the latter, > forget it. I am talking about final delivery to MySQL. I thought it was qmail-send which is pulling messages out of queue and put them into Maildirs. > (Hell, a simple POP3 session would have to lock the database for quite a > long time - does it scale?) Why? I don't see a reason, why pop3 would lock db for long time? -- Ondrej Sury: [EMAIL PROTECTED], +420602667702 GLOBE Internet s.r.o.: http://www.globe.cz/, [EMAIL PROTECTED], +420233356502 NAJDI.TO; http://najdi.to/, [EMAIL PROTECTED] PRESS.CZ; http://press.cz/, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Replacing delivery method...
Mark Delany wrote: > > On Tue, Jan 18, 2000 at 04:46:31PM +0100, Ond?ej Surý wrote: > > > > I just want to hear your opinions... > > > > How difficult would be to replace qmail-send and qmail-pop3d to > > put and pull > > mail to and from database (MySQL)? I don't like idea of > > overwhelming file > > system with milion of mails ;-) > > What leads you to believe that a database such as MySQL will > not overwhelm your file system trying to do the same thing? > > Did you make any comparative performance measurements? Well, this solution have some advanteges and some disadvanteges. Let me think of some: + You can backup all mail much more easily. It's quite easier to backup few database files than bunch file-per-email files. + You can store emails on different machine than qmail-smtpd is running without using N(ot Reliable)FS. + You can run queries over emails in case you save parsed header into db. + It's too much easier to access mails from web (for me) and you don't have to use IMAP. - Database files are bigger than plain emails. But that has nothing to do with my previous question. -- Ondrej Sury: [EMAIL PROTECTED], +420602667702 GLOBE Internet s.r.o.: http://www.globe.cz/, [EMAIL PROTECTED], +420233356502 NAJDI.TO; http://najdi.to/, [EMAIL PROTECTED] PRESS.CZ; http://press.cz/, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Replacing delivery method...
> From: =?iso-8859-2?Q?Ond=F8ej=20Sur=FD?= <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 16:46:31 +0100 > > > I just want to hear your opinions... > > How difficult would be to replace qmail-send and qmail-pop3d to > put and pull > mail to and from database (MySQL)? I don't like idea of > overwhelming file > system with milion of mails ;-) Or has anyone implemented this? You would prefer to overwhelm a database with millions of emails? I suspect you'll find the filesystem to be faster. Chris -- Chris Garrigues virCIO http://www.DeepEddy.Com/~cwg/ http://www.virCIO.Com +1 512 432 4046 +1 512 374 0500 4314 Avenue C O- Austin, TX 78751-3709 My email address is an experiment in SPAM elimination. For an explanation of what we're doing, see http://www.DeepEddy.Com/tms.html Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft, but they could get fired for relying on Microsoft. PGP signature
Re: Replacing delivery method...
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 18 Jan 00, at 16:46, Ondřej Surý wrote: > How difficult would be to replace qmail-send and qmail-pop3d to > put and pull > mail to and from database (MySQL)? I don't like idea of > overwhelming file > system with milion of mails ;-) Or has anyone implemented this? Are you talking about final delivery to a MySQL, or /var/qmail/queue in MySQL. (Or why are you talking about qmail-send.) If the latter, forget it. If the former, try your luck (seznam.cz is doing that I think). I still can't see how a generic-purpose SQL would handle million of user entries better than a specific-purpose database (filesystem). If you are concerned about millions of directories/files, you can put together something much smarter than SQL for messages... (Hell, a simple POP3 session would have to lock the database for quite a long time - does it scale?) -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 6.0.2 -- QDPGP 2.60 Comment: http://community.wow.net/grt/qdpgp.html iQA/AwUBOISac1MwP8g7qbw/EQLp8QCg6gOluP4MeD9zves98/ftAn31tmQAoPIy IJoXbnJdrdFcPrzs3aiEoWeZ =y/Lr -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: Replacing delivery method...
On Tue, Jan 18, 2000 at 04:46:31PM +0100, Ond?ej Surý wrote: > > I just want to hear your opinions... > > How difficult would be to replace qmail-send and qmail-pop3d to > put and pull > mail to and from database (MySQL)? I don't like idea of > overwhelming file > system with milion of mails ;-) What leads you to believe that a database such as MySQL will not overwhelm your file system trying to do the same thing? Did you make any comparative performance measurements? Regards.
Replacing delivery method...
I just want to hear your opinions... How difficult would be to replace qmail-send and qmail-pop3d to put and pull mail to and from database (MySQL)? I don't like idea of overwhelming file system with milion of mails ;-) Or has anyone implemented this? -- Ondrej Sury: [EMAIL PROTECTED], +420602667702 GLOBE Internet s.r.o.: http://www.globe.cz/, [EMAIL PROTECTED], +420233356502 NAJDI.TO; http://najdi.to/, [EMAIL PROTECTED] PRESS.CZ; http://press.cz/, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
