From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Sep 15 6:37:10 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from ns1.sminter.com.ar (ns1.via-net-works.net.ar [200.10.100.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 77B9614E5C for ; Wed, 15 Sep 1999 06:37:00 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from fpscha@ns1.sminter.com.ar) Received: (from fpscha@localhost) by ns1.sminter.com.ar (8.8.5/8.8.4) id KAA15642 for freebsd-isp@freebsd.org; Wed, 15 Sep 1999 10:38:15 -0300 (GMT) From: Fernando Schapachnik Message-Id: <199909151338.KAA15642@ns1.sminter.com.ar> Subject: SMTP load balancing To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 10:38:15 -0300 (GMT) Reply-To: Fernando Schapachnik X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL40 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Hello: I've a situation on which I need some help. We're running a busy mail server, now on a Sun. As vertical scalability is very expensive I'm considering building an -individually inexpensive- FreeBSD cluster. What I'm certain about is that I don't what to use NFS, because of all the problem it generates (locking, etc.). I thought about building something like: +-----------+ +----- Server 1 | Front end | | | DNS MX |--------+----- Server 2 +-----------+ | +----- Server ... | +----- Server n The idea is that there is one machine pointed by the MX record that receives incoming mail and distributes it between the other servers. Some problems arise: a) The front end still has to manage the huge amount of incoming mail. b) Uniform POP3 access to mailboxes under the same name becomes imposible. Another posibility would be to have something like +-------------+ +-------------+ +---------------+ +-------------+ | Front end 1 | | Front end 2 | | Front end ... | | Front end n | +-------------+ +-------------+ +---------------+ +-------------+ | | | | +---------------+---------+---------+-----------------+ | +------------+ | Disk array | +------------+ But... such a thing exists? I mean: an external disk array that can be mounted by several FreeBSD machines at the same time. I think not. May be replacing the disk array by another machine, which has the file repository and is the POP3 server? I would really aprettiate any comment or suggestion. Thanks for your time! Fernando P. Schapachnik Administración de la red VIA Net Works Argentina SA Diagonal Roque Sáenz Peña 971, 4º y 5º piso. 1035 - Capital Federal, Argentina. (54-11) 4323-3333 http://www.via-net-works.net.ar To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message