dbox configuration
==================

See <MailboxFormat.dbox.txt> for a description of the dbox mailbox format.

Mail location
-------------

dbox can be used in two ways:

 1. One message per file (*single-dbox*), similar to <Maildir>
    [MailboxFormat.Maildir.txt].
 2. Multiple messages per file (*multi-dbox*), but unlike <mbox>
    [MailboxFormat.mbox.txt] multiple files per mailbox.

To use *single-dbox*, use the tag 'sdbox' in the <mail location>
[MailLocation.txt], for example:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
# single-dbox
mail_location = sdbox:~/dbox
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

For backwards compatibility, 'dbox' is an alias to 'sdbox' in the mail
location.

To use *multi-dbox*, use the tag 'mdbox' in the <mail location>
[MailLocation.txt], for example:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
# multi-dbox
mail_location = mdbox:~/mdbox
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alternate storage
-----------------

dbox has a feature for transparently moving message data to an <Alternate
storage> [MailboxFormat.dbox.txt] area.

To specify an alternate storage area, use the 'ALT' parameter in the mail
location. For example, specifying the mail location as:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
mail_location = mdbox:/var/vmail/%d/%n:ALT=/altstorage/vmail/%d/%n
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

will make Dovecot look for message data first under '/var/vmail/%d/%n', and if
it is not found there it will look under '/altstorage/vmail/%d/%n' instead.

Mailbox directory name
----------------------

When using the default hierarchical layout, there is a potential for naming
collisions between dbox's 'dbox-Mails/' subdirectory and mail folders of the
same name. For example, consider a mail folder "foo/bar". Under the default
hierarchical layout, data about this mail folder would be stored at
'~/mdbox/mailboxes/foo/bar/dbox-Mails/'.

If the user then tried to create a mail folder "foo/bar/dbox-Mails", this would
then imply that data would be stored at
'~/mdbox/mailboxes/foo/bar/dbox-Mails/dbox-Mails/'. But this would overlap the
'dbox-Mails/' subdirectory of mail folder "foo/bar".

This may not be a problem in many installations, but if a risk of collisions
with the default name "dbox-Mails" is perceived, then the 'DIRNAME' parameter
can be used. For example, if we specify mail location as:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
mail_location = mdbox:~/mdbox:DIRNAME=DbOx-mAiLs
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

then this will make data for mail folders be stored in a subdirectory
'DbOx-mAiLs/' instead of the default 'dbox-Mails/', so a mail folder "foo/bar"
would have data stored at '~/mdbox/mailboxes/foo/bar/DbOx-mAiLs/'.

The value for 'DIRNAME' should be chosen carefully so as to minimise the
chances of clashing with mail folder names. In the example here, unusual
upper/lower casing has been used.

(This file was created from the wiki on 2011-01-13 04:52)
