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author | Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org> | 2024-04-15 17:36:47 +0000 |
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committer | Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org> | 2024-04-15 17:36:47 +0000 |
commit | 0441d265f2bb9da249c7abf333f0f771fadb4ab5 (patch) | |
tree | 3f3789daa2f6db22da6e55e92bee0062a7d613fe /doc/wiki/Plugins.FTS.Squat.txt | |
parent | Initial commit. (diff) | |
download | dovecot-0441d265f2bb9da249c7abf333f0f771fadb4ab5.tar.xz dovecot-0441d265f2bb9da249c7abf333f0f771fadb4ab5.zip |
Adding upstream version 1:2.3.21+dfsg1.upstream/1%2.3.21+dfsg1
Signed-off-by: Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/wiki/Plugins.FTS.Squat.txt')
-rw-r--r-- | doc/wiki/Plugins.FTS.Squat.txt | 128 |
1 files changed, 128 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/wiki/Plugins.FTS.Squat.txt b/doc/wiki/Plugins.FTS.Squat.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07dc867 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/wiki/Plugins.FTS.Squat.txt @@ -0,0 +1,128 @@ +Squat Full Text Search Indexing +=============================== + +NOTE: The Squat code is quite slow for large mailboxes. There are also a few +bugs that are unlikely to be fixed. In v2.1+ it's recommended to use +<fts-lucene> [Plugins.FTS.Lucene.txt] instead. There's also a "New Squat" +redesign/reimplementation going on, which will likely end up having a new name. + +The main difference between Squat indexes and the others is that Squat provides +support for substring searches, while pretty much all other FTS indexes support +only matching from the beginning of words. By strictly reading the IMAP RFC it +requires substring matching, so to optimize regular TEXT and BODY searches you +must use Squat with Dovecot v2.0. The other indexes are used only for Dovecot's +non-standard X-TEXT-FAST and X-BODY-FAST searches. However, almost all other +commonly used IMAP servers no longer care about this requirement, so Dovecot +v2.1 also no longer makes this distinction. In Dovecot v2.1 TEXT and BODY +searches are done using any indexes available. + + * The Squat indexes are currently updated only when SEARCH TEXT or SEARCH BODY + command is used. It's planned that in future they could be updated + immediately when messages are being saved. + * The Squat indexes take about 30% of the mailbox size (with partial=4 + full=4). + * The initial Squat index building for large mailboxes can be very CPU and + memory hungry. + * The Squat indexes are stored among Dovecot's other index files. They're + called 'dovecot.index.search' and 'dovecot.index.search.uids'. It's safe to + delete both of these files to trigger a rebuild. + +Some statistics with Core2 duo 6600, 2 GB memory (partial=4 full=4): + + * 1,4 GB mbox with 368000 messages: SEARCH BODY asdfgh + * Without Squat: 2 min 35 sec CPU, process RSS size 24 MB + * Initial Squat build: 6 min 36 sec CPU, process RSS size peaks at 800 MB, + drops to 96 MB at end. + * Subsequent searches: 0.10 sec CPU, 1.18 sec real with cold cache, process + RSS size 2 MB. + * Most of the time was spent verifying Squat results. Searching for a + 1..4 letter word gives results in 0.00 CPU secs and 0.80 real secs + with cold cache. + + * 32 MB mbox with 7500 messages: SEARCH BODY asdfgh + * Without Squat: 2.3 sec CPU, 3.6 sec real with cold cache, process RSS + size 5 MB + * Initial Squat build: 8.9 sec CPU, 10.0 sec real with cold cache, process + RSS size peaks at 61 MB, drops to 20 MB at end. + * 48 MB maildir with 10000 messages: SEARCH BODY asdfgh + * Without Squat: 2.6 sec CPU, 9.7 sec real with cold cache + * Initial Squat build: 9.7 sec CPU, 15.3 sec real with cold cache + +Internal workings +----------------- + +Squat works by building a trie of all 1..4 character combinations of all words +in messages. For example given a word "world" it indexes "worl", "orld", "rld", +"ld" and "d". Matching message UIDs are stored to each trie node, so Squat +supports giving definitive answers to any searches with a length of 1..4 +characters. For longer search words the word is looked up in 4 letter pieces +and the results are merged. The resulting list is a list of messages where the +word *may* exist. This means that those messages are still opened and the word +is searched from them the slow way. + +Squat also supports indexing more characters from the beginning of words. For +example if 5 first characters are indexed, the word "character" would be cut to +"chara". If a user then searches for "chara", Dovecot does: + + 1. Search for messages having "char" (reply example: 1,5,10) + 2. Search for messages having "hara" (reply example: 3,5,10) + 3. Store the intersection of the above searches to "maybe UIDs" (example: + 5,10) + 4. Search for full word "chara" and store it as "definite UIDs" (reply + example: 5) + 5. Remove definite UIDs (5) from maybe UIDs (5,10 -> 10) + +In the above example Dovecot would know that message UID 5 has the word +"chara", but it still has to check if UID 10 has it as a substring (e.g. in +word "achara") by reading the message contents. If the user's search words +match mostly non-substrings (which is common), using long enough full word +indexing can improve the search performance a lot, especially when the word +matches a lot of messages. + +The Squat name comes from Cyrus IMAP [http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/] which +implements slightly similar Squat indexes ("Search QUery Answer Tool"). +Dovecot's implementation and file format however is completely different. The +main visible difference is that Dovecot allows updating the index incrementally +instead of requiring to re-read the entire mailbox to build it. Cyrus Squat +also doesn't support 1..3 characters long searches. + +Configuration +------------- + +'fts_squat' setting can be used to change Squat options: + + * partial=n: Length of the substring blocks to index. Default is 4 characters + and it's probably not a good idea to change it. + * full=n: Index n first characters from the beginning of words. Default is 4, + but it could be useful to increase this to e.g. 10 or so. However larger + values take more disk space. + +---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- +mail_plugins = $mail_plugins fts fts_squat + +plugin { + fts = squat + fts_squat = partial=4 full=10 +} +---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +Using both Squat and non-Squat (v2.0-only) +------------------------------------------ + +It's possible to use both Squat and non-Squat indices at the same time, so that +TEXT/BODY are looked up from Squat indexes and X-TEXT-FAST/X-BODY-FAST are +looked up from the non-Squat index. This of course means that indices will have +to be built and updated for both, so it might not be that good idea. + +---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- +protocol imap { +.. + mail_plugins = fts fts_squat fts_solr +} +... +plugin { + fts = squat solr +} +---%<------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +(This file was created from the wiki on 2019-06-19 12:42) |