Mbox - Revision history

DrModiford at 20:37, 2 October 2007

2007-10-02T20:37:45Z

Jimbo at 13:28, 15 September 2004

2004-09-15T13:28:47Z

Jimbo: Reverted edit of Dave, changed back to last version by Jimbo

2004-09-15T13:28:07Z

Reverted edit of Dave, changed back to last version by Jimbo

Dave at 16:22, 14 September 2004

2004-09-14T16:22:47Z

Jimbo at 04:51, 14 September 2004

2004-09-14T04:51:19Z

New page

The traditional unixlike system's email storage format; pioneered by the ubiquitous (and somewhat evil) [[sendmail]]. An '''mbox''' is a single flat file containing all of a user's emails, concatenated front to back.

Mboxes are faster to read from (but slower to write to) than [[maildir|maildirs]]. More importantly, they are considerably more subject to potential corruption issues - on a heavily trafficked server, file locking has to be carefully implemented to keep multiple processes from clobbering a single mbox they all want to write to. Worse yet, a single corrupt file can result in losing ALL of a user's email; whereas with [[maildir]] there is no simple way (short of somebody typing '''rm -rf''' from a shell prompt) to lose more than one email with a single operation or corruption.

Contrast with [[maildir]].

[[Category:FreeBSD Terminology]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:37, 2 October 2007
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	Contrast with [[maildir]].		Contrast with [[maildir]].
		+
		+	See also [[Postfix]], an alternative mail server, that offers mbox capability.

	[[Category:FreeBSD Terminology]]		[[Category:FreeBSD Terminology]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 13:28, 15 September 2004
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	The traditional unixlike system's email storage format; pioneered by the ubiquitous (and somewhat evil) [[sendmail]]. An '''mbox''' is a single flat file containing all of a user's emails, [[concatenated]] front to back.	+	The traditional unixlike system's email storage format; pioneered by the ubiquitous (and somewhat evil) [[sendmail]]. An '''mbox''' is a single flat file containing all of a user's emails, concatenated front to back.

	Mboxes are faster to read from (but slower to write to) than [[maildir\|maildirs]]. More importantly, they are considerably more subject to potential corruption issues - on a heavily trafficked server, file locking has to be carefully implemented to keep multiple processes from clobbering a single mbox they all want to write to. Worse yet, a single corrupt file can result in losing ALL of a user's email; whereas with [[maildir]] there is no simple way (short of somebody typing '''rm -rf''' from a shell prompt) to lose more than one email with a single operation or corruption.		Mboxes are faster to read from (but slower to write to) than [[maildir\|maildirs]]. More importantly, they are considerably more subject to potential corruption issues - on a heavily trafficked server, file locking has to be carefully implemented to keep multiple processes from clobbering a single mbox they all want to write to. Worse yet, a single corrupt file can result in losing ALL of a user's email; whereas with [[maildir]] there is no simple way (short of somebody typing '''rm -rf''' from a shell prompt) to lose more than one email with a single operation or corruption.

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:22, 14 September 2004
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	The traditional unixlike system's email storage format; pioneered by the ubiquitous (and somewhat evil) [[sendmail]]. An '''mbox''' is a single flat file containing all of a user's emails, concatenated front to back.	+	The traditional unixlike system's email storage format; pioneered by the ubiquitous (and somewhat evil) [[sendmail]]. An '''mbox''' is a single flat file containing all of a user's emails, [[concatenated]] front to back.

	Mboxes are faster to read from (but slower to write to) than [[maildir\|maildirs]]. More importantly, they are considerably more subject to potential corruption issues - on a heavily trafficked server, file locking has to be carefully implemented to keep multiple processes from clobbering a single mbox they all want to write to. Worse yet, a single corrupt file can result in losing ALL of a user's email; whereas with [[maildir]] there is no simple way (short of somebody typing '''rm -rf''' from a shell prompt) to lose more than one email with a single operation or corruption.		Mboxes are faster to read from (but slower to write to) than [[maildir\|maildirs]]. More importantly, they are considerably more subject to potential corruption issues - on a heavily trafficked server, file locking has to be carefully implemented to keep multiple processes from clobbering a single mbox they all want to write to. Worse yet, a single corrupt file can result in losing ALL of a user's email; whereas with [[maildir]] there is no simple way (short of somebody typing '''rm -rf''' from a shell prompt) to lose more than one email with a single operation or corruption.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 The traditional unixlike system's email storage format; pioneered by the ubiquitous (and somewhat evil) [[sendmail]].  An '''mbox''' is a single flat file containing all of a user's emails, concatenated front to back.
-Mboxes are faster to read from (but slower to write to) than [[maildir|maildirs]].  More importantly, they are considerably more subject to potential corruption issues - on a heavily trafficked server, file locking has to be carefully implemented to keep multiple processes from clobbering a single mbox they all want to write to.  Worse yet, a single corrupt file can result in losing ALL of a user's email; whereas with [[maildir]] there is no simple way (short of somebody typing '''rm -rf''' from a shell prompt) to lose more than one email with a single operation or corruption.
+Mboxes are somewhat faster to read from (but slower to write to) than [[maildir|maildirs]].  More importantly, they are considerably more subject to potential corruption issues - on a heavily trafficked server, file locking has to be carefully implemented to keep multiple processes from clobbering a single mbox they all want to write to.  Worse yet, a single corrupt file can result in losing ALL of a user's email; whereas with [[maildir]] there is no simple way (short of somebody typing '''rm -rf''' from a shell prompt) to lose more than one email with a single operation or corruption.
 Contrast with [[maildir]].
 [[Category:FreeBSD Terminology]]