Daniel Wright wrote:
> As someone new to setting up an email server and actually in the process
> of researching it, I have actually found the thread, "sendmail vs.
> postfix" very interesting. The one thing that is not clear to me is the
> partition scheme that is best for an email server.
>
> I would like to here what people are using for their partition setup.
> Anyone care to share?
Depending on what kind of email server you're setting up (UW-imap vs.
cyrus, mbox vs. maildir, etc) and the number of clients you expect to
have on it, there are a few different answers.
For smaller setups with either type of imap/pop3 config, having a
seperate /var/spool/mail partition is almost always a good idea.
As you get into bigger and bigger setups though, especially if you're
using a mbox type imapd like uw-imap, you'll want to start thinking
about putting /var/spool/mail on a seperate disk all together, or on a
fast raid array if you really have the means. The #1 problem I see with
people using uw-imap is they become I/O bound very quickly since uw-imap
stores it's inbox in on large mbox file in /var/spool/mail and has to
open the whole thing up every time it reads/writes to it.
Again, not a huge deal if you've got 10 people with 20-50Mb inboxes, but
it turns into a problem fast if you've got a few hundred people
accessing their inboxes of 50-100Mb. :)
If you're running a maildir type imapd like cyrus, I'd recommened
putting /home/ on a seperate partition as well, and if you have enough
users, a seperate disk/raid array if you can.
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of carving up a disk into more than 3 or
4 partitions. If the primary reason is to cover huge log files, as some
have mentioned, it might be a good idea to take a closer at look at your
logrotate scripts to keep a partition from filling up.
HTH
Dan
