Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 19:32:35 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Brian Whalen" <bri@sonicboom.org>, <rcollins@hwi.buffalo.edu> Cc: <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: redundant mail servers Message-ID: <006101c13f21$02f70ba0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <20010916120603.T4428-100000@cx175057-a.ocnsd1.sdca.home.com>
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His problem isn't in the SMTP servers, it is how do you centralize all the mailboxes? rcollins, what you might consider doing is creating a minimum of 3 servers, two of them would be SMTP recievers, and the last would be the spool server. Export that server's spool via NFS and mount it onto the SMTP recievers. Run the pop server on the spool server. Consider also something else when your doing your redundancy planning. Do you have redundant network connections? A set of redundant mailservers is pointless unless your multihomed and running BGP4 and have your own AS number and all that. Let me reveal this: for a total of 5 YEARS the primary mailserver at the ISP I run had no redundancy at all - not even raid. (I have since replaced it with much better and more redundant hardware) However, over that time period ALL of the problems we had with mail were network-related and we are multihomed! While it may be sexy to have multiple hardware boxes, the mailserver hardware is by no means the weakest link in the system and you should not be bothering with it until you have strengthened everything else associated with the mail system. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Brian Whalen >Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 12:07 PM >To: rcollins@hwi.buffalo.edu >Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: redundant mail servers > > >Thought of just using 2 or more boxes with multiple mx records?? > >Brian "Sonic" Whalen >Success = Preparation + Opportunity > > >On Sun, 16 Sep 2001 rcollins@hwi.buffalo.edu wrote: > >> I'm looking to implement redundant mail servers. Load balancing would be >> *very nice* considering the cost of the hardware, but redundancy is the >> requirement. I would like to use freebsd, of course, but things are looking >> pretty grim. Hopefully someone on the list can help me out. I have only >> found one way to do this on freebsd and that is to use an application >> solution such as polyserve's understudy. $3000 is a hunk of change though, >> and they don't support anything past 4.1-RELEASE. Who knows what they are >> going to support tomorrow, so I'm not too keen on that idea. >> >> The route that I would really like to take a shot at is to hook two freebsd >> machines up to a multi-host scsi enclosure and use sistina's gfs for the >> filesystem. The only problem there is gfs hasn't been ported to freebsd >> yet. They have been promising a port for several years now, but one still >> hasn't appeared. >> >> Anyone have any other ideas? >> -rcollins >> >> >> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >> with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message >> > > >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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