[0.1beta1] Roundcube without a database - why not?

[nicedream]

First let me say that RoundCube is a great product....a simple to use, uncluttered webmail program that is nice to look at.

I know a major change like this would be a large undertaking, but I figure I'll ask to see if anyone else has thought of it.

Is there any reason RoundCube could not theoretically run without a database? Preferences and address books could be stored in flat text files, and mail folders could be read directly from the IMAP server (as Squirrelmail does). It would be nice to be able to use RoundCube without bothering to install and run MySQL on my server.

[simoesp]

you Could Use With SQLLite because it's a database but it doesn't require a server see db.inc.php.dist file in config directory

[bpat1434]

In order to answer why not a database, you have to first look at why RC uses a database.

The database is there to store users, contacts, and most importantly mail messages. Roundcube will log-in to the IMAP server, and if caching is enabled, download the messages to the database. In that database, all your user preferences are stored as well. Things like timezone, HTML preferences, display name, contacts, and others.

Now, take the database away. What if you don't have an LDAP server to store your contact information on? You just lost your way of storing contacts, so we lose one major feature. How about storing preferences? Yes, you can store it via a cookie, but how secure are they? And if you clear your cookies, you have to re-setup your preferences. And finally, speed. What if Roundcube always had to contact the IMAP server in order to get the messages (whether just the headers or entire message) just to view it, or view the list. If you have a huge inbox, it can take quite a while.

So can you see why we use a database? Can you see why not using a database would be a hinderence to Roundcube?

SQLite isn't really a server-less database. SQLite is just a performance enhanced database system.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia: SQLite

SQLite is an ACID-compliant relational database management system contained in a relatively small C library.

You still need the physical storage of it, but it's how it interacts with the storage unit that is different. But you're still more than welcome to try it.

[mrecondo]

Hi,

I'm evaluating Roundcube to use in the school which I'm the IT Admin and I think that's useful to use a database to store preferences, but I think to use it to store the messages could bloat the database server since most users don't store their messages in folders, they just keep all of them in the inbox, only deleting some of them.

I think that would be interesting to have some sort of feature to disable ONLY this use of the database, keeping the others (addressbook, preferences, etc).

[yllar]

you can achieve this by seting

$rcmail_config['enable_caching'] = FALSE;

in config/main.inc.php

[bpat1434]

I think that would be interesting to have some sort of feature to disable ONLY this use of the database, keeping the others (addressbook, preferences, etc).

That's correct yllar, that's why there's the Cache option.

Turn caching off to not store messages, and just store preferences.
Turn caching on to store messages and everything else.

[bogg]

Well, is there any huge reason why a "Database-less" mode could exist, were you store the user preferences and such on the webserver? there's already both a temp and a logs folder that roundcube writes to. Why not a "db" where it could save to flat files (maybe encrypted to ensure some safety).

Users need to have the option atleast

[bpat1434]

You want to use a flat-file DBMS instead of any other free DBMS out there? Why?

You can have a database-less setup if you just remove the session stuff. But what's so bad about the database being there? If any person purchases hosting, they should at least get one database to use.

Users need to have the option atleast

Not really. It's written on the front that Roundcube requires a database. Why do we need to offer them a database-less system? it's not a very good solution to the problem of storing session, contacts, and identity info.

[bogg]

Originally Posted by Brett

You want to use a flat-file DBMS instead of any other free DBMS out there? Why?

You can have a database-less setup if you just remove the session stuff. But what's so bad about the database being there? If any person purchases hosting, they should at least get one database to use.

Not really. It's written on the front that Roundcube requires a database. Why do we need to offer them a database-less system? it's not a very good solution to the problem of storing session, contacts, and identity info.

one reason mainly: to be able to set it up on even free hosting that doesn't have database-support.

Also giving users a option gives the RC-team a greater userbase, easy as that...

[bpat1434]

one reason mainly: to be able to set it up on even free hosting that doesn't have database-support.

Okay, but what Free host uses IMAP? most free hosts use POP3, which RC can't do.

Also giving users a option gives the RC-team a greater userbase, easy as that...

Valid point....