temporary files

Sorry for what may seem like a newbie question.

So, we have the mail spool in /var/mail/username and then subdirectories 
in ~username/maildir/ that have been created and subscribed to to move 
things out of /var/mail. Procmail drops probable spam and bounces, among 
other things, in subdirectories of ~username/maildir/.

I was talking with my boss about directory structures and partitions to 
optimize performance of mail on the server. He thought there was a temp 
directory, maybe something like /var/spool/pop, that could be set up on 
a different spindle so that when email came in  and went out it wasn't 
all hammering on the same drive. As far as I can tell, however, uw-imap 
doesn't use any temporary file space for reading and moving things 
around. The only thing I could find was:

http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/pipermail/imap-uw/2008-May/002045.html

  On Sun, 4 May, 2008 Mark Crispin wrote:
  > The only temporary files are small (a few bytes) files on /tmp used 
to aid
  > in locking.


If I'm using sendmail with mimedefang, delivering mail with procmail, 
and reading with uw-imap, could someone give me a brief tutorial-like 
summary of the path of the incoming and outgoing mail message, 
indicating what is just done in memory and what file space gets used 
(including any temporary file space)? I know, I ought to know; but, 
sometimes, when you build a bunch of stuff using a variety of cookbooks 
and guides, you end up not knowing as much about the nitty details as 
you might like.


TIA


-- 
---------------

Chris Hoogendyk

-
   O__  ---- Systems Administrator
  c/ /'_ --- Biology & Geology Departments
 (*) \(*) -- 140 Morrill Science Center
~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst 

<[email protected]>

--------------- 

Erdös 4


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