| Handling of Private messages. [message #28712] |
Sun, 06 November 2005 15:42  |
defa
Messages: 14
Registered: July 2005
Karma: 0
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Junior Member |
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Hi!
I looked a little closer at the handling of private messages and I was really stunned when I found out, that the message bodies are stored in _one single_ file.
I don't know why it is done this way, but I can't see any advantages of that solution.
In my eyes the disadvantages are huge:
- Performance: Using single files is slow - there are good reasons why modern mailserver use Maildirs instead of Mailboxes.
- Data: storing the messages heads in the DB and the body in one single file is absolutely nonsens from the data-theoretical point of view. Because (as happend to me) if you desynchronize the DB from the file by accident really dumb things start to happen, like people getting PM's they weren't supposed to get. etc. - in my eyes the header and the body have an 1:1 relation - so why not store the body in the DB?
- Security: When users delete their PM's (which also can contain confidential information) the body remains in the private file until a lazy admin tries to compress the data, if the lazy admin uses safemode the private file will be destroyed trying this. - But there is an other draw back - if someone gets webserver rights in some way (which is not unlikely if you use PHP and some vhosts) he'll find a neat little archive of all personal messages (even deleted ones). From the users point of view this is really a mess - because the user has no posibility to remove the PM-Body from the server.
Well, I'd suggest to store the PM's in the DB in upcomming versions - it's easy to implement and (in my opinion) has only advantages compared with the actual solution.
bye
defa
[Updated on: Sun, 06 November 2005 22:32] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: Handling of Private messages. [message #28803 is a reply to message #28712] |
Fri, 11 November 2005 15:11  |
Ilia
Messages: 13241
Registered: January 2002
Karma: 0
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Senior Member
Administrator
Core Developer |
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Storing messages in the database is actually slower and far more in effecient this has been benchmarked many times. It also restricts maximum message length to no more then 65k.
This issue has been covered many times, search the archives for answers and reasons.
P.S.
Fudforum is safemode safe, this option won't cause a problem.
FUDforum Core Developer
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| Re: Handling of Private messages. [message #28853 is a reply to message #28850] |
Sun, 13 November 2005 16:38 |
Ilia
Messages: 13241
Registered: January 2002
Karma: 0
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Senior Member
Administrator
Core Developer |
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One file is very effecient, had 1 file per message been used access to the data would've been much slower, especially when there is a large number of private messages around.
Message file corruption is virtually impossible under normal operation, claims to the contrary are just that, similar to your safe_mode claim.
FUDforum Core Developer
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