Re: backup mail server

["Dave Peters" <user=190@nabble.blu.org>]

 Hello all and Grant, 

Thanks for all the inputs. I think Grant's suggestion 
is  the best to fit our requirement. I'll going to 
setup caching mail server. 
I already have backup MX record, but it won't function 
as caching mail server. 

Thanks again. 
BTW, 
Grant, Can you send me the startup scripts? 

Thanks. 

-Dave 



--- "Grant M." <[hidden email]> wrote: 

> The way that I did what you are talking about is to 
> setup my backup mail 
> server as a caching mail server. Basically what that 
> means is that the 
> backup mail server just holds onto all the mail it 
> receives, and then 
> you have to have your primary tell it to forward 
> anything it has on. 
> It's been so long since I'd set it up, I can't even 
> recall how I did it, 
> but it was just using Sendmail. When the mail server 
> would go down or 
> stop responding for some reason, the backup server 
> would just receive 
> all of the mail and hold it. When we got the primary 
> back up and 
> running, there was a startup script that would call 
> out to the backup 
> and tell it to forward everything on. If you don't 
> do this, the backup 
> will just hold it forever. 
> 
> Then, if you set the MX record for your primary mail 
> server to a 
> preference value of 10 (the default), and set your 
> backup mail server to 
> a preference value of say, 50, when the primary goes 
> offline, all mail 
> should be delivered to the backup and held. You have 
> to be careful, 
> though. Some mail server's don't wait very long 
> before they failover to 
> the backup, so you need to have the primary call out 
> to the backup 
> several time a day just to be sure. 
> 
> I initially set this up when we moved from one 
> building to another. I 
> setup the caching server at the new location, and 
> then went back and 
> brought down the primary. This meant that all of the 
> mail was then sent 
> to the backup for caching. I then moved the server 
> to the new building, 
> installed it and brought it up, and just like magic 
> there was not a 
> single missed email, and no annoying "I can't send 
> this right now" 
> messages sent to the customers. 
> Grant M. 
> -- 
> Grant Mongardi 
> Senior Systems Engineer 
> NAPC 
> 
> [hidden email] 
> http://www.napc.com/
> 781.894.3114 phone 
> 781.894.3997 fax 
> 
> NAPC | technology matters 
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