On 3/2/2012 9:37 AM, Bharath Chari wrote:
On Friday 02 March 2012 07:45 PM, rajeshrudramani wrote:
Hi,
In qmail single user when touches 2GB mail box size was
showing IMAP error(but user didn't have quota restriction) . For many
user getting this error in webmail.
Let's be clear here - in QMT there is no limit to the size of a mailbox,
except for the storage allocation on the filesystem in which it is
stored (or the quota established). This is because the Mailbox in QMT is
NOT A SINGLE FILE - it is a folder, with subfolders used to organize
things, and each message being a separate file in one of those
sub-folders. These are called Maildirs.
THIS IS CONCEPTUALLY DIFFERENT from other mail systems, *_esp.
Exchange_*, where a Mailbox is in fact a database that is stored locally
on the server's fileystem. On those systems, you often run into file
size limitations (like 2GB for older, 32-bit Exchange servers). Some
other UNIX-based mail servers also use a database-type of format,
usually MBOX (which is terrible for today's kinds of e-mail), but also
sometimes MySQL.
So why is the user having a problem? The issue with very large mailboxes
in this case is being caused by the CLIENT software (or, possibly, as
was mentioned earlier) by the Courier IMAP server.
HOWEVER, if you're having trouble in QMT (and assuming courier-imap &
squirrelmail), and the issue is the number of messages (not really
size-related), then you can do what I did for a client who assumed that,
like when he ran into this problem on Exchange, it would take many hours
of compressing, repairing, and/or re-indexing to fix... My fix (outlined
below) took 10 minutes total!
I simply went into his Maildir inbox and created new Maildir folders for
each year (he had 8 years worth of e-mails). (NOTE: These were Maildir
folders, so each had a cur, new, and tmp sub-folder). Lastly, I used the
find command to move everything dated 2005 from the Inbox cur folder to
the new 2005 sub-folder (again, actually to the /cur /subdirectory)..
then I did it again for 2006 and so on up to 2010... I left him with
only 2011 and 2012 messages in his actual inbox, then forced Courier to
rebuild the message indicies for each (by removing the old indices and
re-accessing from the client). Solved his Squirrelmail problem
instantly... (NOTE: Outlook creates a pseudo-PST file for each IMAP
account -- and it being a PST file, it has the limits of a PST file in
that version of outlook... so this solution may not work for everyone in
every "giant inbox" situation...)
One final note - for this same user, I had to do the same to his Sent
folder -- similiarly HUGE after 8 years of use!
I hope this helps some...
Dan
IT4SOHO
--
IT4SOHO, LLC
PO Box 507
St. Petersburg, FL 33731-0507
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877-IT4SOHO
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