[SimpleMail-usr] Re: SimpleMail should leave alpha state
- From: Jörg Strohmayer <nospam@xxxxxx>
- To: "Simplemail-user_mailing_list" <simplemail-usr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 00:07:53 +0100
David Rey <david@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I think it is the most *easy* way to do it.
mbox is the easiest.
> By "robust" I mean "safe against any loss".
That's what SimpleMail (and YAM) does. Even all major mail servers use
(at least optionally, but recomended) the maildir format (1 file per
mail) now instead of the old mbox formats (one file for all mails,
seperated by "From " lines).
Maildir is more secure as SimpleMail and YAM by using 3 directories per
folder and allow simultaneous access by differnt programs/tasks, but
it's basically the same.
| maildir(5) maildir(5)
|
|
| NAME
| maildir - directory for incoming mail messages
|
| INTRODUCTION
| maildir is a structure for directories of incoming mail
| messages. It solves the reliability problems that plague
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| mbox files and mh folders.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[...]
But for something like maildir not only to be reliable but fast too (a
lot faster as mbox anyway) you need a good filesystem - but we don't
have any on AmigaOS ... They are not as bad as (V)FAT, but not good
either.
>> when you make Files like THOR, you get serious problems even when a
>> single bit is changed.
> I realize there isn't an easy solution for this, but there *must* be a
> better way.
Tell the mail server authors (except Microsoft) that they are all wrong
using maildir and that there is something better ...
Of course a database, like in UMS for example, has some advantages as
well, like *instant* access to all messages and *very fast* searching
even in hundertthousends of mails (as long as you don't use a regexp
search), but using MySQL or even rewriting something like that would be
overkill in *Simple*Mail :-)
You usually don't store the contents of geocities (no 'normal' web-
servers, it's a database system) in a mailreader either ;-)
And you will loose reliability, you can even loose all mails (at least
all in one folder) if only one single file is damaged/lost - or you have
to store all important data at least twice.
> I don't know whether J=F6rg may give advice here - I agree that
> individual files is the most flexible approach,
It isn't. But it's the most robust one.
> but then the way of indexing them should have room for improvements.
Maybe, I haven't checked what SimpleMail does exactely and how.
Indexing is only required on too slow filesystems ...
(status information can be stored in custom headers and/or the filename
instead).
If speed is a problem in folders with a lot of mails use 72, 144, 216,
288, 360 or 200, 400, 600 directories per folder on AmigaOS (FFS
actually, with 512 or 1024 bytes/block), foldername/hashABC/mailfile.
Or create a new directory in each folder every day or week, use the date
from the Date: header for the directory name (otherwise moving some
thousend mails at once to a folder would end in thousends of files in
one directory again). Will help on AmigaOS (FFS and SFS, don't know for
AFS/PFS) and much more on FAT.
> Again, "The Bat!" seems very advanced in this respect: apparently the
> developers went to great lengths to prevent any loss of email no matter
> how hard you crash, or this is at least what I hear from some users I kno=
w.
Is the format "The Bat!" uses a public format? If not it's useless.
How do you want to create any loss of mails in a maildir (SimpleMail,
YAM, ...) anyway? If the filesystem or harddisk dies and you have no
RAID system no format can help ...
SimpleMail ESMTP STARTTSL:
- Don't send EHLO FQDN in the first, unsecure EHLO, use for example
EHLO simplemail.sourceforge.net instead. All private data, including
the users FQDN, should only be send secure if account->smtp->secure
is enabled.
- After STARTTSL you have to send another EHLO, this time with the real
(or configured) FQDN, the mailserver may, a lot will and servers only
allowing SSL/TSL connections have to, offer different ESMTP extentions
in secure mode. 'Forget' everything from the first EHLO, none of the
ESMTP extentions from the first EHLO must be used after STARTTSL,
esmtp_ehlo() does this already.
Even though the current implemention does work with (nearly?) all
servers it's wrong.
-- =
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