Why are all my dates off by a fixed hour / don't use "From " header?
Why shouldn't I open the lurker mboxs with a mail reader?
Why do I get "opening database: Operation not supported" on MacOS?
I run postfix and lurker doesn't import any new email; why?
Why not store all the messages as XML instead of rendering them as it?
How can I delete a mailing list?

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Q: Why are all my dates off by a fixed hour / don't use "From " header?

A: The computer which imports mail should be in the same timezone as the
   computer which archived the mail. This is because mailbox timestamp
   envelopes are generated in local time. You can set your local timezone
   for the purposes of indexing with the TZ environment variable.


Q: Why shouldn't I open the lurker mboxs with a mail reader?

A: Mail readers like to modify the X-Status header by adding or removing
   flags which denote that the message is new, or opened, or read, etc.
   These changes result in displacement changes in the file even if you do
   nothing but read the file. Also, your mail reader may re-order messages
   by some criterea. Finally, you might accidentally delete a message.
   
   Solutions:
     1. Use a procmail rule to copy mail to a lurker mbox and your own mbox
        which you delete messages from:
          :0 c
          lurkers-copy.mbox
     2. Make the mailbox read only for you, but appendable by the mail
        user (or whatever user appends to the mbox):
          chown mail.youruser lurkers.mbox
          chmod 0640 lurkers.mbox


Q: Why do I get "opening database: Operation not supported" on MacOS?

A: You are running the lurker database on a filesystem which does not
   support file locking. Lurker cannot run safely on such a filesystem and
   thus refuses to possibly corrupt the database.


Q: I run postfix and lurker doesn't import any new email; why?

A: Postfix sets a file size resource limit. The intention of this option
   is to limit the size of mailboxes delivered to. Unfortunately, this
   option also applies to ALL files opened by child processes.
   
   This means lurker will die with SIGXFSZ when accessing the database!
   You must tell postfix not to set a file limit or use another MTA.
   
   mailbox_size_limit = 0
   
   If you have a postfix with a soft limit (does not exist yet), then
   compile the stand-alone file lurker-drop-rlimit.cpp and run it infront of
   lurker-index like:
   
      lurker-drop-rlimit lurker-index -c /etc/lurker.conf -l devel -m

 
Q: Why not store all the messages as XML instead of rendering them?

A: Lurker is designed to hold lots of email. Many other programs need
   mailing list archives in mbox format. It doesn't cost much for me to
   re-parse a specific email, so there is not much speed lost. On the 
   other hand, I save a lot of disk space.
   
   Example of archivers that use mbox->html + indexer:
	1Gb mbox
	2Gb html (larger on average)
	500Mb index
	---
	250% space wasted

   Example of lurker:
	1Gb mbox
	300Mb index
	---
	30% space wasted

   As you can see, since lurker builds the index from the *mbox* the index
   should be smaller. Furthermore, why store the larger html/xml when most
   of it probably won't be accessed?
   
   Finally, even though I like XML, I think it is important to be able to
   retreive to original email without any concerns that translation back and
   forth may have slightly altered the contents of the email. Therefore, I
   consider keeping the mbox essential, and it seems natural to leave the
   data in this native format.


Q: How can I delete a mailing list?

A: Short answer: you can't.
   Long answer: delete the database and reimport.
   
   Lurker uses a very special insert-only database. 
   
   In a future version there will be a special 'deleted' keyword which can
   be used to "delete" specific mail. That is; mark it as not for display.
   However, marking a lot of messages in this manner would waste a lot of
   disk space and your time, so reimporting is probably your best bet.
