Hi,
I was recently playing with dovecot plugins, and one of them caught my attention: zlib. This plugin allows dovecot imap4/pop3 modules to deal with gzipped messages on Maildir+ boxes ... files are stored in compressed format and users can normally check them through IMAP4/POP3, decompression is on-the-fly and users doesnt notice anything.
On several mailboxes i have access and could test, gzipping all message files would save about 40% of storage space. Of course the compression/decompression is a very CPU intensive task ... but 40% of storage saving really calls my attention.
Apparently there's no problem with mailbox quota management because dovecot uses the S=size parameter which is present on the filenames, which postfix writes correctly, instead of filesize on the file system.
Altough dovecot supports reading gzipped files through IMAP4/POP3 modules, it does not automatically compress files on its delivery agent, that should be done by some script somehow.
Dovecot delivery agent do not support on-the-fly compression when delivering messages .... but when (and if) dovecot delivery agent supports that on-the-fly compression as well, i'll really study it.
Anyway, as i dont use dovecot delivery agent because postfix virtual delivery agent really fits my needs .... i would like to propose a feature request here, the on-the-fly compression on virtual delivery agent, which would be a perfect match for dovecot zlib module i described.
Because of locking things, that on-the-fly compression/decompression is not possible for mbox boxes.
Some minor information about dovecot zlib module: http://wiki.dovecot.org/Plugins/Zlib -- Atenciosamente / Sincerily, Leonardo Rodrigues Solutti Tecnologia http://www.solutti.com.br Minha armadilha de SPAM, NÃO mandem email gertru...@solutti.com.br My SPAMTRAP, do not email it
