The benefits of using mysql as a backend

[ychaouche]

Postfix
* needs a place to check wether an e-mail address is valid
* needs a place to store email address aliases

Cyrus
* if you need to send email from outside your network then postfix needs to authenticates you. Popular choices are Cyrus and Dovecot. Cyrus needs a place to store logins and passwords.

Courier
* needs a place to store logins and passwords for IMAP authentication
* needs a place to store maildir locations and quota information for mail delivery


If every service has to use its own format-specific database, changing an email address would have to be done in three different places. This is why a mysql setup is a popular choice.

In addition, usually the simple format-specific databases that each of these software uses store the password in clear text, that means they're unencrypted. If anyone gets a copy of the database, he could easily read all passwords. With mysql you can encrypt the data.

This is not a question, it's just how I understand things. I posted this here in the hope that it will sparkle some interesting comments and help me learn more or see my mistakes.

 

[EQ Admin]

I posted this here in the hope that it will sparkle some interesting comments and help me learn more or see my mistakes.

Yes, database backends are more useful. Other reasons include the ability to scale if your environment grows and requires multiple/separate mail and database servers. Picture multiple MX, webmail, database, etc types of servers behind a load balancer.

For the IMAP server, I recommend Dovecot over the old Courier IMAP. Courier gets slow for Maildir accounts are there are lots of emails or strorage being used. Dovecot is exponentially faster dealing with "large" email accounts over 2GB in size.