At 1:30 PM -0800 2/27/05, Sean Colins - Core Professional Services wrote:
Dear list, and Apple monitors,
If anyone in the Mail Server group at Apple is listening, I will be
able to handle the work around to this problem for now, but every
client I have is talking about bringing in another solution to
handle their mail if this isn't fixed in Tiger Server. Please give
me an indication if possible that this bug has been properly logged
and will be fixed! Thanks.
Your dreaming.
What you want to do is file a bug report.
This is not a place to voice commentary wishfully thinking that Apple
OS Engineering will hear anything. Moreover these aren't Apple issues
per se but issues with Cyrus, and are to some degree best directed to
that project.
I have been specializing in Apple's OS X Server mail implementation
now for several years through all the changes, and have been
generally happy with the results. What I have not been particularly
happy about is a certain lack of stability with 10.3 mail server
under certain circumstances. Specific problems are apparent with
database corruption, and a frequent need for repair of the mail
database, resulting in the redelivery of any mail that was stored on
the server as new messages. I am listing the fix for the repair of
the mail database here, because it is openly available on the Apple
Support site, and because it is somewhat difficult to locate, but
also to point attention to a problem that affects Cyrus in Apple's
implementation of it's Mail server, but somehow seems less prevalent
in the open source Cyrus community, based on my observations of that
community.
These aren't Apple issues, they're endemic to Cyrus, which is one
reason why I detest it so much.
As for the procedure to rebuild the Cyrus mail database, it's well
documented already, including right in the OS X Server Mail Service
documentation.
The problem seems to occur because Cyrus looses the permission to
write to its own log files.
This is inaccurate. The issue occurs as part of log rotation, and it
occurs because of a mal-adaptive synergy between the log rotation
process and Cyrus. Moreover this only occurs under a very specific
circumstance, one which is not the default operation of the server.
I have seen this happen on servers providing mail to over a
thousand accounts, and seen it affect servers providing mail to only
a couple of dozen accounts, so the number of accounts is not the
problem. But mail volume may be. Another possibility is log volume
and the frequency of write outs to the log files. I am uncertain.
WRT database corruption this has nothing to do with volume or number
of users, and everything to do with orderly operation.
WRT to the log file issues, this has nothing to do with volume or
numbers of users but everything to do with the options selected for
configuration.
I have spoken with Apple support about this, and have found that
they are aware of the problem, but had not at the time of my last
communication with them been able to replicate the problem in their
labs. That was in December, so I'm hopeful that has changed and a
fix is forthcoming.
I believe that it it is very well known at Apple. It sounds more like
that the support technicians you've dealt with were not understanding
the issues as you presented them. Furthermore as an originator of a
support incident it is your duty, since you're the one interested in
answers, to follow up on your open tickets if you have questions
about the progress of your tickets.
I thought I had found a very solid fix to the problem which involved
editing the imapd.conf file in /etc, but a client just had the same
failure occur after I had applied what I thought would be a fix, so
clearly that didn't do it. (I simply altered the logging behavior.)
A fix for the log rotation issue has been posted here about a dozen
or so times, including just this past week.
--
-dhan
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Shoop AIM: iWiring
Systems & Networks Architect http://www.iwiring.net/
email@hidden http://www.ustsvs.com/
AIM: ColonelMode11780
iWiring designs and supports Internet systems and networks based on
Mac OS X, unix, and Open Source application technologies and offers
24x7, guaranteed support to registered clients, at affordable rates.
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