Delete Time in MySQL for lazy users...

johndow · Post by **johndow** » 2005-09-24 23:49

There is a discussion in the alpha forum
http://www.hmailserver.com/forum/viewto ... aef5e98df4

about restoring mails when a lazy user does not take care...

To prevent requests for changing the whole storeage structure of hmail here my request:

Add a delete-timer to the database:
- Deletion of a mail or folder will only a flag with the date/time in the mysql table.
- User see the done deletion as it has been done regulary
- Admin can take a look at each account and select on the Mail Subject and Message ID and the Foldername which mail/folder has to be undeleted.
- Time between deletion-flag and real deletion from the HDD can be set by the admin for the whole server (or if wanted for each domain).

Please let me know your opinion and if you have such a situation or need in your daily work...

Thank you.

Post by **martin** » 2005-09-25 09:44

Just want to make it clear that I don't have to change the whole storage structure for hMailServer just if I don't implement that. The current storage structure in hMailServer makes it rather easly to implement restore of specific IMAP folders, messages etc from the hMailServer backup. Just because a piece of functionaltiy does not exist, doesn't mean it's not possible to implement it..

Personally, I don't see why you would want this instead of just being able to point out the backup file, selecting the message / IMAP folder to restore and click OK. This solution sounds a lot more complicated to me. Both to implement and to use by the server administrator.. :-\

johndow · Post by **johndow** » 2005-09-25 13:34

Personally, I don't see why you would want this instead of just being able to point out the backup file, selecting the message / IMAP folder to restore and click OK. This solution sounds a lot more complicated to me. Both to implement and to use by the server administrator.. :-\

No, sorry.

I don't want it.

I have make this feature request only because I am interested to see the opinion of other users. To make a poll is more easier as to keep a endless discussion alive. I hope others show their opinion about it only with a poll and not with starting a discussion about.

Lets come back to this poll in some weeks or months and see what has happen.

iprat · Post by **iprat** » 2005-09-28 10:16

With all respect to Martin (please tell me if I am misleaded):

I think this feature might be certainly easy to implement and might give a powerful tool to solve certain daily issues on small servers (I can't figure in huge servers if it could be useful or not). Deleting an item would render to State:"deleted but file still present" with a time stamp in the database. An easy flush function would be to set a time everyday at wich the server would have a look at all the "deleted but file still present" in the database and if the diference (real_time-delete_time) is greater than a parameter (in days maybe ?) this would lead to a change in state to "permanently deleted" and to really delete the email file.

Of course I would suggest that if the "real deleting delay" is set to zero the server should act like now directly deleting the files, so this function would be optional.

Anyway Martin and polls will decide.

Best regards,

Ignasi

cmurphy54 · Post by **cmurphy54** » 2005-09-28 15:03

I can see how it would be useful as a suppliment to your backup since if I only do a daily backup, there is at least a day's time where email could be deleted and yet not backed up, which would make it unrestorable. This would solve that situation. Except, I guess once you restored the backup a day later, the deletion time would have passed and so the email would be instantly deleted, so it might not actually solve the issue I described (but it would be nice if it would!).

iprat · Post by **iprat** » 2005-09-28 17:01

cmurphy54 wrote:I can see how it would be useful as a suppliment to your backup since if I only do a daily backup, there is at least a day's time where email could be deleted and yet not backed up, which would make it unrestorable.!).

That's exactly what I thought

cmurphy54 wrote:This would solve that situation. Except, I guess once you restored the backup a day later, the deletion time would have passed and so the email would be instantly deleted, so it might not actually solve the issue I described (but it would be nice if it would!).

In a backup restoration hMailServer should be able to restore those deleted items with the deletion time changed to the time of the restore operation, hence you would have the entire defined period to recover messages that were deleted at backup's time.

Don't know if this will be finally implemented but it is an interesting thread anyway

Best regards,

Ignasi