Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 18:35:08 -0500 From: Delanet Administration <admin@delanet.com> To: "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>, "qmail@list.cr.yp.to" <qmail@list.cr.yp.to>, "vchkpw@inter7.com" <vchkpw@inter7.com> Subject: FreeBSD, Qmail, and NFS Message-ID: <3A3564AC.CE7283BF@delanet.com>
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[-- Attachment #1 --] I have a project I am about to undertake and would like some opinions before I begin. We currently have a single server running Qmail on FreeBSD 3.2, with customer Maildirs on a NFS attached external raid connected from another server. This for the most part works fine. We occasionally have problems where the mail server is unable to read the contents of user directories (the NFS server can see them fine). At these times the only fix has been to move the contents of the directory into a temporary location and delete the directory, add it back and move the files back. This happens once every 2 or 3 months. We are now planning to expand our mail system. We would like to keep Qmail and FreeBSD both. We were wishing to have 3 or 4 load balanced front end servers to split the load of the mail servers, with a common fibre channel raid back end. This brings up some obvious issues. First, we wanted to have all 4 hosts processing and able to access the raid simultaneously with ability for live failover and the ability to remove/upgrade individual parts of the cluster at any time. NFS under FreeBSD (as of the posts I saw from Nov 2000) has no support for per client file locking. GFS was my other choice, however Sistina Software said there will not be a copy ported to FreeBSD until Q2/Q3 2001. I do not know of any other file systems that are capable of per client file locking for FreeBSD that will offer reliability and the performance we wish it achieve (If anyone else does, I'd really like to know). This leads to the next question, is file locking necessary under Qmail when using the Maildir style directory structure for the mail store? SMTP will never be accessing any files after it writes them to the Maildir. Pop3 should not interfere either. Perhaps if a user tries to access via pop3 multiple times simultaneously, but otherwise I see no reason for file locking in this environment. If this is the case, what do people think of this cluster configuration with a fibre channel back end raid? Or should we use NFS instead? And if we do use NFS, has the problem we experienced (noted above) been resolved in the more recent releases of FreeBSD or is this a configuration issue on our end? Also, If anyone else has clustered FreeBSD with Qmail already, we would like also to know how you achieved it and any tips you may have as to configuration of such a setup. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. -- ------------------------------------------------------------ Stephen Comoletti - Network Engineer / Systems Administrator Delanet Inc. http://www.delanet.com Frontline Communications Corp. http://www.fcc.net phone: (302) 326-5800 fax: (302) 326-5802 x312 262 Quigley Blvd, New Castle, DE 19720, USA ------------------------------------------------------------ [-- Attachment #2 --] 0 *H 01 0 + 0 *H 000 *H 01 0 UZA10U Western Cape10U Durbanville10 U Thawte1 0U Certificate Services1(0&U Personal Freemail RSA 1999.9.160 000614164555Z 010614164555Z0C1 0 UThawte Freemail Member1 0 *H admin@delanet.com00 *H 0 k$2Ańs[iΜ wes~ںq"f^t`A*-jSg$XSo=T&XExjgmEE ]Z" Ct) ~Ls9Hkի) O0M0 U 0admin@delanet.com0 U 0 0 U #0`fUXF a#Ì0 *H B}30'!퉩%1o'{Č bV(ټ}ZPq\^iV z0 St]tpqI\|Thzff~Ť^ ,?) it00} 0 *H 01 0 UZA10U Western Cape10U Cape Town10U Thawte Consulting1(0&U Certification Services Division1$0"UThawte Personal Freemail CA1+0) *H personal-freemail@thawte.com0 990916140140Z 010915140140Z01 0 UZA10U Western Cape10U Durbanville10 U Thawte1 0U Certificate Services1(0&U Personal Freemail RSA 1999.9.1600 *H 0 iZ z]!#rLK~r$BRW{azr98e^eyvL>hpu t ,O 1ArƦ]D.Mօ>lx~@эWs0FO 7050U 0 0 U #0rIs4U vr~wƲ0 *H kY1rr`HU{gapm¥7؝(V\uoƑlfq|ko!6- -mƃRt\~ orzg,ks n Νc) ~U10001 0 UZA10U Western Cape10U Durbanville10 U Thawte1 0U Certificate Services1(0&U Personal Freemail RSA 1999.9.160 + 0 *H 1 *H 0 *H 1 001211233508Z0# *H 1jTcw$O0' *H 100+0 *H (0 *H Fl"sݞW&ǘ!rU@#.cH)d*q-0N9eD' G9F4s* Kf3ӹvӇDjχ%ֿu>YW8 ebwf m7&*!Q
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