Re: missing /var/mail

On Fri, Feb 01, 2008 at 03:36:55PM -0500, Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 01, 2008 at 01:25:59PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > Use a storage method that doesn't put all eggs in one basket.
>
> What filesystem doesn't put all the eggs in one basket?

I don't think Ron was talking about UPSes, filesystem options, or RAID. Given the context of the conversation at that point, I'm pretty sure he was referring to the mbox basket, which puts all messages into a single file. If the system drops while that one file is in an unstable state, then you lose everything.

There are other mailbox formats, most notably Maildir, which store each message in a separate file. If the system drops while a file is being written and that file's data is lost, then you only lose one message instead of the whole mailbox.

-- 
I reckon we are now the only monastry ever that had a dungeon stuffed with
sixteen thousand zombies.
  - perlmonks.org


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