On Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:00:06 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: > >> - avoid Postfix and Qmail > > > > Why? I ask because I have a mail server with reiserfs on the mail > > spool, it's been running for several years and behaved impeccably, > > but if there is a good reason to switch, I will. > > It's one of those maybe-it-is, maybe-it-isn't scenarios. > > Wiki has a pretty accurate description of the scene wrt mail spools: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReiserFS#Criticism
"Some directory operations (including unlink(2)) are not synchronous on ReiserFS, which can result in data corruption with applications relying heavily on file-based locks (such as mail transfer agents qmail[9] and Postfix[10]) if the machine halts before it has synchronized the disk." So I can lose stuff if the computer crashes. I don't see that as a specific problem with MTAs. although they do tend to have a lot of file throughput. On the other hand, I think the fact that maildir uses so many files is one of the reasons I went with ResierFS in the first place, running out of inodes on a mail server would not be my idea of fun. > His first statement though is very good advice. Never store a reiser > image on a feiser fs, and never use reiser in a VM on a host fs that is > also reiser. The reason is what happens when you try fsck it - reiser > metadata (unlike ext*) is not all in fixed pre-determined locations on > disk, so fsck can employ heuristics to go and look for it's metadata. If > it finds it's own metadata and also the metadata in the stored image, it > can't tell them apart. The results of that are not pretty. Absolutely, I have no dispute with that - nor with the MTA statement I just hasn't heard that one before. -- Neil Bothwick RAM disk is *not* an installation procedure.
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