Disable creation of hardlinks in message store

[Simon Matter]

I've tried to get rid of hardlinked files in our cyrus spools to make
partial mailbox restores easier and more safe. My first idea was to set
"singleinstancestore: no" in imapd.conf and make all payload files
independant from each other. Unfortunately I realized later that while
incoming messages are stored in independant files, the IMAP COPY command
still creates hardlinked message files. Of course there is nothing wrong
with singleinstancestore because the manpage clearly states that only
delivery via lmtp/nntp is affected.
I have now looked at the code and found that mailbox_copyfile() has a
nolink parameter which controls the copy/link behaviour. My idea was to
create a new config option to disable hardlinks completely.

My questions:
- is such an option a very bad idea?
- does such a patch already exist somewhere?
- what's the best name of a new config option?
- is there a chance to have such a patch accepted into the distribution?

Thanks,
Simon


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