Date: 08 Oct 2002 10:03:57 +1000 From: Patrick Kelso <lujan@zgeek.com> To: Denny Reiter <denny@reiters.org> Cc: Jamie <jamie@gnulife.org>, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Server out of space -- Need suggestions Message-ID: <1034035438.55433.11.camel@mrd1100.homeunix.org> In-Reply-To: <20021007194502.GK30821@reiters.org> References: <E4AAC34FE3CF564D8AE89EB8AC333FD705CFEF23@XMB03CRDGE> <20021007141027.H6069-100000@floyd.gnulife.org> <20021007194502.GK30821@reiters.org>
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On Tue, 2002-10-08 at 05:45, Denny Reiter wrote: > On Mon, Oct 07, 2002 at 02:12:18PM -0500, Jamie wrote: > > > > > > What other suggestions do you have for building a reliable mailserver? > > And is there a way to set up a couple of servers so that if one goes down, > > the other automatically takes over with the same mail spool if possible? > > We also need to re-engineer here, and I would like to take that into > > consideration. Thanks! > > If you have the money, put the mail spool on a NetApp filer and > export it to several identical FreeBSD systems. Then put those > FreeBSD systems behind something like a Foundry ServerIron L4 switch > and have it take care of the load balancing and redundancy. > > You'd definitely want to use Maildir for the storage of mail. This is the setup the last ISP I worked for used. For approx 60,000 mail users. A NetApp Filer, running redundant raid, and with tape backup as well. We had 4 dual p3-500s as the mailservers, sitting behind a cisco L4 switch. If one of the servers went down, we still had 3 mail servers. If one of the filers hard drives went down, the raid kicks in. The single point of failure is the l4 switch though. (and it did fail once. We had a spare identically configured so even a helpdesk phonemonkey could swap it in. downtime, less than 5 minutes.) Secondary MX should be on a seperate network and subnet. Often upstream providers can help with that, or look at a deal with another small ISP who uses a different upstream provider to swap secondary MX servers. And to whoever said a well run helpdesk and support site can teach customers how to configure their mail clients for multiple servers, I qoute Douglas Adams; "People who design things to be completely foolproof, often underestimate the ingenuity of a complete fool" Spend six months on a helpdesk teaching home internet users to configure netscape mail or outlook express to check even one account, and maintain your sanity. I dare you :) Cheers, Patrick Kelso > > Denny > > -- > Denny Reiter denny@reiters.org > So I don't hurt your feelings: happydenny@reiters.org > www.scapegoats.org > I know where I'd like _you_ to go today... > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message
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