[Box Backup] Mailbox backup is dangerous.

[Micha Kersloot]

Hi,

> On 8/27/09 12:25 AM, Christian Tschabuschnig wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > this e-mail (from 4 months ago) never got a reply from anyone. Is the
> > below statement true? Or is it a misinterpretation of something else
> > happening?
>
> On the surface, it appears that the real problem was that the mail
> messages were deleted from the mail server, and since there was not
> enough room on the boxbackup server, they were cleaned up during
> housekeeping.
>
> If they hadn't been deleted from the mail server and/or there had been
> enough storage in the account on the backup server, the files would not
> have been removed.

Yeah right, but is this not the real reason why we keep backups? 

> Maybe I'm missing something, but before getting to the point that
> housekeeping starts removing files from the server, the account has to
> reach its storage limits.

Boxbackup will allways reach its storage limits, it's build that way. If it 
shouldn't reach it's storage limits, why are there any limits build in then?

> Since there is no 'deleted timestamp' for a file (because it's gone),
> there is no readily available way to tell when it was deleted, except
> when boxbackup scans for it and marks it deleted in the store. This is
> not accurate of course, so I don't know how practical it would be to use
> it as a basis for when to remove files from the store during housekeeping.

But it even doesn't do the above, which would be a better solution as the 
current one.


> Removing from the store by 'deleted-time' would necessitate tracking the
> deletion time stamp in the store, as well as the modified- and other
> timestamps on the file. During recovery these time stamps would need to
> be recovered, so they can't be overwritten.

Thing is that for deleted files it's more importend that they stay in the store 
for some time after deletion than the actual timestamp. Believe me if I say 
the user is far more happy with a file that actualy can be recoverd than a file 
that can't be recoverd, but has a correct time stamp!

A solution that just pops up in my mind is maybe to update the storage object 
timestamp when the Deleted flag is set and just check that when scanning for 
deleted files.

> > Tom Albers wrote:
> >> Housekeeping removes files from the store based on the actual file
> >> date and not on the deletion time
-- 
Met vriendelijke groet,

Micha Kersloot

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