From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Apr 22 20:59:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA02557 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 22 Apr 1997 20:59:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mixcom.mixcom.com (mixcom.mixcom.com [198.137.186.100]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA02547 for ; Tue, 22 Apr 1997 20:59:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: by mixcom.mixcom.com (8.6.12/2.2) id XAA15845; Tue, 22 Apr 1997 23:00:16 -0500 Received: from p75.mixcom.com(198.137.186.25) by mixcom.mixcom.com via smap (V1.3) id sma015840; Wed Apr 23 04:00:15 1997 Message-Id: <3.0.32.19970422224655.00c32810@mixcom.com> X-Sender: sysop@mixcom.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 22:46:57 -0500 To: Blaz Zupan From: "Jeffrey J. Mountin" Subject: Re: Mail distribution Cc: shovey@buffnet.net (Steve), freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 04:57 PM 4/22/97 +0200, Blaz Zupan wrote: >> > POP3 on this new machine? I simply can't believe that >> > all providers have only one POP3 server. >> Why cant you? > >How about "single point of failure"? Do you really want me to >believe that f.e. AOL has one single POP3 server for all their >thousands (millions?) of mailboxes? But do they have all the same data? Do at least 2 servers have the same data, not necessarily all of it, but there is at least one redundant server for each account? >> I cant think of how you could keep multiple copies of inboxes in sync. > >Yeah, that's the problem I'm trying to solve :) The most important part is the messages, correct? Then every time there is a write to the mail spool, one should to a backup. This is not reasonable. Downtime is not a problem with secondary MX handles that can queue mail, so the problem is to have a backup, but the data is too dynamic. A RAID array would be the best solution, preferably level 5, but level 1 gives you 2 mirrored drives and level 4 could be used, but is not as efficient. Of couse in the case of a RAID array, "What if the controller shorts out the drives and you cannot recover?" This is just a "what if" that could go on. "What if you keep your backup tapes off site, but the building goes up in smoke?" You are going to have a bad day/week, but at least you still had a very good solution to the problem and hopefully good business insurance. ;-) ------------------------------------------- Jeff Mountin - System/Network Administrator jeff@mixcom.net MIX Communications Serving the Internet since 1990