Article Storage

Article Storage#

Znuny stores the article data in one of two locations

  • Database (ArticleStorageDB - Default)

  • Filesystem (ArticleStorageFS)

In smaller and new systems, the database will be the preferred location due to speed, flexibility, ease of use and backup purposes. As time and usage progresses, you may decide to change to the file system.

Migrate to the Filesystem#

  1. Verify Current Storage Configuration:

  • Navigate to Admin -> SysConfig.

  • Search for Ticket::Article::Backend::MIMEBase::ArticleStorage.

  • Check if it’s set to ArticleStorageDB (database storage) or ArticleStorageFS (file system storage). - If you want to permanently change this, you can. Otherwise, afterward, the attachments will be divided across backends. In this case:

  • Activate Ticket::Article::Backend::MIMEBase::CheckAllStorageBackends, to run in mixed mode.

  1. Prepare for Migration:

  • Verify Directory: The location where Znuny will save the articles can be found in Ticket::Article::Backend::MIMEBase::ArticleDataDir

  • Backup Your Data: Ensure you have a complete backup of both your database and file system.

  • Check Permissions: Confirm that the web server user has appropriate read and write permissions to the target storage directory. It’s recommended that the web server runs under the ‘znuny’ user to avoid permission issues.

  1. Execute the Storage Switch:

  • Open a terminal on your Znuny server.

  • Navigate to the Znuny installation directory (commonly /opt/znuny).

  • Run the following command to migrates all articles from the database to the file system.

bin/znuny.Console.pl Admin::Article::StorageSwitch --target ArticleStorageFS

  1. Post-Migration Steps:

  • Verify Migration: Ensure that articles and attachments are accessible and correctly served from the new storage backend.

  1. Address Potential Issues:

  • Permission Issues: Ensure that both the Znuny application and the web server have the necessary permissions to read and write to the new storage location.

  • Skipping Problematic Articles: If certain articles cause errors during migration, you can use the –force option to continue the process despite errors:

bin/znuny.Console.pl Admin::Article::StorageSwitch --target ArticleStorageFS --tolerant

Partial Migration#

It is possible to migrate part of the data, and run in mixed mode.

  1. Activate Ticket::Article::Backend::MIMEBase::CheckAllStorageBackends, to run in mixed mode.

  2. Run a partial migration using the console command options to migrate based on the time options.

[--tickets-closed-before-date ...] - Only process tickets closed before given ISO date.
[--tickets-closed-before-days ...] - Only process tickets closed more than ... days ago.
[--tickets-created-before-date ...] - Only process tickets created before given ISO date.
[--tickets-created-before-days ...] - Only process tickets created more than ... days ago.

Performance Issues#

To run the migration during live operations, use the --micro-sleep options.

[--micro-sleep ...]            - Specify microseconds to sleep after every ticket to reduce system load (e.g. 1000).

File Structure#

The attachments are stored logically on the file system in the following way

$ArticleDataDir/YYYY/MM/DD/ArticleID/

The following file may be found.

plain.txt

The raw email message

file-1

The plain message part

file-2

The HTML message part

name.disposition

The MIME part disposition

name.content_type

The MIME part content_type

name.content_id

The MIME part content_id

name.content_alternative

The MIME part content_alternative

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