IMAP Performance (again)

[Rick Stevens]

Karl Pearson wrote:
> Bob McClure Jr wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, Aug 23, 2005 at 03:27:52PM -0600, karlp at ourldsfamily.com wrote:
>>  
>>
>>> I sent an email a bit ago asking relative performance questions about
>>> different IMAP servers. I saved the responses and plan to do 
>>> something...
>>> But, because of the philosophy "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" I 
>>> haven't
>>> changed anything yet.
>>>
>>> BUT, I have figured something out. Whenever an Outlook Express IMAP user
>>> accesses the server, it's unbearably overwhelming to the system and 
>>> causes
>>> incredible slowness. When Pine or Squirrelmail users access the system,
>>> there's no noticable performance hits. With Pine, I understand 
>>> because it
>>> doesn't access all the folders everytime it tries to update things.
>>> Outlook Express does this, as does Squirrelmail if the option is set. 
>>> With
>>> the option set in Squirrelmail, it doesn't hit the server as hard as
>>> Outlook. Or, have I been smoking something? (don't answer that)...
>>>
>>> It's not unusual for this server to have 'uptime' rates in the 4-6 range
>>> when Outlook Express is accessing it.
>>>
>>> I guess I don't really have a question as much as wondered what thoughts
>>> you might have...
>>>
>>> Karl
>>>   
>>
>>
>> I'm curious which IMAP server you are using.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>  
>>
> The default that comes with RH8.0... I've not installed anything other 
> than default stuff, kind of... That's my general philosophy. It makes 
> recovery easier for me.

RH8.0 came with UWimap (Crispin's version), and it has issues with large
mailboxes and folders.  imap-2002e handles it much better (that's what I
use with over 9,000 domains and 50,000 users), and dovecot (the standard
with Fedora) would probably work as well...but you have to migrate the
mailboxes to mh format from standard mailbox format.  Not difficult and
they do provide a tool to do that.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-  Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a  -
-                              rigged demo.                          -
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