backup mail server

Discussions on webmail and the Professional version.
Post Reply
compucoder
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2004 1:27 pm

backup mail server

Post by compucoder »

I want to setup a secondary mailenable server on a different network as a backup server for a secondary MX destination. I want to backup and restore just the postoffice data to this new server. I want the postoffices, mailboxes, domains, etc - no mail, just the folders.

How would I go about doing this? I just dont want to type in all this info manually on my new mail server. I host alot of mail clients.

Thanks.

compucoder
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2004 1:27 pm

Post by compucoder »

I actually figured this out.

I do have another question related to this. I have a lot of mail clients - when the mail gets sent to the backup mail server how can I easily manage seeing this and then migrating the messages to the primary mail server? I would love for the backup to send the mail to the primary automatically. I really have alot of mail clients, mailboses, post offices, etc. Alot to manage as it is.

Any ideas?

MrByte
Posts: 663
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2003 5:33 pm
Location: Florida, USA

Post by MrByte »

the secondary MX record should be a smarthost server, meaning that it will hold only messages if the Primary goes down and when it comes back up it will send all saved messages to it.

If you intend to have a backup server (not same as secondaty MX) then story is different. You would have to move all, including messages back to the primary server.
.MrByte

dreniarb
Posts: 319
Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2004 5:00 pm
Location: Marion, IN

Post by dreniarb »

The thing I don't like about smarthosting is that ALL mail is downloaded, even for accounts that don't exist on the primary server.

I've actually turned off smarthosting. I was acting as a secondary server for a customer and getting all kinds of email for them. My server had to download it, then attempt to send it to them, when it was rejected because "mailbox unavailable or not local", THEN my server would attempt to notify the sender (usually a non existent address) that the delivery failed. Way more overhead on my server than I cared to deal with.

Now, if their server goes down, mail is just delayed (most good mail servers will attempt to resend the message, right?). I can usually have it back up pretty quick.

If only their was a way to sych the smarthost with the main server, account-wise, that way the smarthost will only accept email for accounts that exist. That I could handle.

compucoder
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2004 1:27 pm

Post by compucoder »

If only their was a way to sych the smarthost with the main server, account-wise, that way the smarthost will only accept email for accounts that exist. That I could handle.
I was thinking about that very issue. I don't like the fact that I have to manually make new accounts on the smart host server. Sync is a feature that makes smarthosting actually feasible. I add new email addresses and accounts daily.

Already consumes way too much of my time, this is going to add to it too :/

Maybe auto sync between a primary and smarthost is an idea for a new feature request... hint .. hint :P

Thanks guys.

compucoder
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2004 1:27 pm

Post by compucoder »

I enabled the smart host option in Connectors --> smtp options and i took down my primary for a few seconds to test that the mail is going to the backup server and all my tests did but now after bringing up the master server the mail isn't being sent to the primary.

I see that each domain has the option of smart host - I didn't enable these because I thought that the global smart host value would turn smart hosting on for all domains. (as long as you dont check that last box)

Am I doing something wrong?

I set the smart host server to the IP of the master and the port is correct. I also added my username and password to the box just in case. Not sure if I needed this.

Any ideas?

sunpost
Posts: 438
Joined: Wed Sep 04, 2002 3:04 pm

Post by sunpost »

I think the Retry values in the SMTP Delivery tab apply. So it might take 15-30 minutes for the messages to get delivered again.

If you restart the SMTP service it should force the resend.

Guest

Post by Guest »

We primarily use Mailenable, but we use another mailserver for Smarthosting incase there are any problems with the primary.

The good thing about this mailserver is that once you tell it the IP address of the primary mailserver, it will collect all mail for the primary if it is down without having to tell it what domains are on the primary mailserver. What it does is check the MX records for a domain (using the DNS Servers you specify), and if the domain has an MX for the primary server it will accept the mail, if it doesn't it rejects it. Once the primary is available again, it forwards all mail to it.

It's a nice simple solution.

Post Reply