If I am self hosting my email for friends and family, but have a volume attached where dovecot stores the email, can I dynamically add another volume to the VM and tell dovecot to balance mail storage between 2 directories?
Ask HN: Self hosted email, Cloud storage and dovecot
1–10 of 26 posts
Re: Ask HN: Self hosted email, Cloud storage and dovecot
#2I would do this with LVM. You can grow LVM to expand onto a second volume and expand the file system with it. Or ZFS.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/LVM#Add_physical_volume_to_...
However note self hosting mail used to be super easy but these days most report you have a real hard time getting people to accept your mail. When your IP has no prior history and small volume you’ll get false flagged as spam a lot. Likely to be your larger challenge.
Re: Ask HN: Self hosted email, Cloud storage and dovecot
#3That's best not done at the application (dovecot) level. LVM, md, or filesystems like btrfs or zfs can spread data across devices in myriad ways.
Kudos for doing this for friends and family.
Re: Ask HN: Self hosted email, Cloud storage and dovecot
#4I would do this with LVM. You can grow LVM to expand onto a second volume and expand the file system with it. Or ZFS. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/LVM#Add_physical_volume_to_... However note self hosting mail used to be super easy but these days most report you have a real hard time getting people to accept your mail. When your IP has no prior history and small volume you’ll get false flagged as spam a lot. Likel…
What if I am doing this at a cheap VPS provider? Can I just add two of their storage volumes and somehow combine them into 1 bigger volume?
Re: Ask HN: Self hosted email, Cloud storage and dovecot
#5That's best not done at the application (dovecot) level. LVM, md, or filesystems like btrfs or zfs can spread data across devices in myriad ways. Kudos for doing this for friends and family.
Ok so I’ll just add 2 storage volumes, and use ZFS on Linux to combine them into 1 volume
Re: Ask HN: Self hosted email, Cloud storage and dovecot
#6That's best not done at the application (dovecot) level. LVM, md, or filesystems like btrfs or zfs can spread data across devices in myriad ways. Kudos for doing this for friends and family.
Ok so I’ll just add 2 storage volumes, and use ZFS on Linux to combine them into 1 volume
It's so a reliability concern. If any volume dies you'll probably lose all the data.
Your nomenclature ("volume") sounds like you are using some kind of cloud system. Just expand your volume? It's unclear why you are asking for your ask.
Re: Ask HN: Self hosted email, Cloud storage and dovecot
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok so I’ll just add 2 storage volumes, and use ZFS on Linux to combine them into 1 volume
It's so a reliability concern. If any volume dies you'll probably lose all the data. Your nomenclature ("volume") sounds like you are using some kind of cloud system. Just expand your volume? It's unclear why you are asking for your ask.
There are volume size limits on my cloud provider, but it sounds like combining multiple ones together might not be a great idea.
Re: Ask HN: Self hosted email, Cloud storage and dovecot
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's so a reliability concern. If any volume dies you'll probably lose all the data. Your nomenclature ("volume") sounds like you are using some kind of cloud system. Just expand your volume? It's unclear why you are asking for your ask.
There are volume size limits on my cloud provider, but it sounds like combining multiple ones together might not be a great idea.
It's totally a good idea.
There is a different question of whether that provides enough reliability, but that depends on if your cloud provider already offers safety in case of hardware failure for your volumes.
Note that even today, with a single volume, if you lose it, you lose all your email.
Most cloud providers would provide some resiliency for storage volumes though.
Re: Ask HN: Self hosted email, Cloud storage and dovecot
#9I would do this with LVM. You can grow LVM to expand onto a second volume and expand the file system with it. Or ZFS. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/LVM#Add_physical_volume_to_... However note self hosting mail used to be super easy but these days most report you have a real hard time getting people to accept your mail. When your IP has no prior history and small volume you’ll get false flagged as spam a lot. Likel…
What if I am doing this at a cheap VPS provider? Can I just add two of their storage volumes and somehow combine them into 1 bigger volume?
That makes it worse; cheap VPS providers tend to have lots of abuse issues, so their IP blocks tend to have poor reputation.
Re: Ask HN: Self hosted email, Cloud storage and dovecot
#10I recommend something like Migadu instead of rolling it yourself.