Re: [Hampshire] Samba vs. Dovecot (and some amusement)

Chris Dennis wrote:
> Keith Edmunds wrote:
>> On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:07:30 +0100, cgdennis@??? said:
>>
>>> It's not absolutely essential -- I just wanted to be able to demonstrate
>>> to the client that their emails are being backed up (to an external hard
>>> drive using rsnapshot) along with all their other files.
>> Understood. I can see your point, but the best demonstration of the
>> effectiveness of a backup regime is to demonstrate recovery.
>> Move /home/fred to /home/oldfred and recover his home directory, then have
>> him access mail. The mere fact that your customer can see mail files on a
>> backup disk proves very little (as I'm sure you know) - the proof of the
>> pudding is in the eating...
>>
>> hth,
>> Keith
>>
>
> Yes, you're probably right. I'm not going to worry about it. If the
> client says "Why can't I see a list of things that look like emails?"
> I'll say "Because you're using the wrong tool to look at them."
>
> I still think Samba is broken though...
>
> cheers
>
> Chris

I would go with a different strategy and skip Samba altogether.

Perhaps rsync'ing the working IMAP Maildirs to a different machine
(twice). Running an IMAP server on the backup machine accessing one of
the two backups, to prove the backup is there and working. The client
can then have two IMAP email accounts on their PC - their normal one,
and one clearly marked 'BACKUP - OUT OF DATE, DON'T USE' (or something
similar!). They can dip in and see all their email from yesterday, or
whenever the backup last ran. Very little user training required too.

Simon C.