Author: Peter Galbavy Date: To: Juha Saarinen CC: Nigel Metheringham, Tom Samplonius, Dave C., Michael J. Tubby B.Sc. G8TIC, exim-users Subject: Re: [Exim] Mail storage formats/ POP/IMAP/webmail daemon/etc..
> Not sure what you mean here -- I thought that was the purpose of the > benchmark? I know Sam's mixed in other metrics as well, to compare UW-IMAP
> with Courier, but still the main idea seems to be a comparison of the two
> storage formats (albeit with different programs).
This is the problem with silly format names. mbox != mbx.
mbox is what UW-IMAP calls traditional UNIX mailbox format where messages
are divided by a "From xxx" line before headers. mbx format is one devised
by/for UW-IMAP / Mark Crispin where the dividers are better formatted to
allow lseek() to the next message rather than reading all the lines and
matching for '^From ^, there is some per-mailbox data in the first 2048
bytes and overall it is very fast for opening. Also, as a consequence of
being the definative source of the mbx format, UW-IMAP / c-client defined a
locking scheme that allows shared access to the mailbox (including appending
new messages).
The benchmarks where done with the slower mbox format, and since much of the
difference in time were with respect to the opening of the mailbox, this is
where my concern lies.
This is starting to get *way* off topic for the exim list. Is there a
general technical e-mail technology mailing list that is *not* full of flame
wars and wannabes. A Nanog for e-mail ?
