On 6/1/05, Ashley M. Kirchner <ashley@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > First, the question: How to build redundancy on a "users" server? > > What's behind it: When our main users server goes down, no one can > log in to check their e-mail. So the problem as it was presented this > morning was to research some way to make it so that if that server goes > down, users still have a way of getting to their e-mail or login to > their accounts for that matter. Now, the setup we have is a bit > different from most people I'm sure. Incoming e-mail flows as follows: > > Internet -> MX server -> spool server (NIS+ slave) > > Our "users" server - also our NIS+ master - (which is a totally > different machine) does an NFS mount of the spool server on /var/mail/ > and voila, e-mail. When our users use imap/pop to check/get/send > e-mail, they log in to that "users" server to do so. No one > communicates directly with the spool server. So when the "users" server > goes down, no one can get to their e-mail. The question: what kind of > redundancy can I build so that if that server were to go down, that > users can still log in (to -something-) and still access everything they > need. Presumably this would be a separate machine and that the fall > back would be transparent to them. I just don't know how or what. > besides the obvious (keeping the server running) id consider you think about a mirroring type of system, i am not sure if anyone has yet tried something like that for mailservers, at least for webservers its pretty common to have 2 or 3 or more servers, who are updating their content with each other at special given times. first things that come into my mind when thinking on bringing that system to a mailserver: 1. write your own mailserver (pop, imap, smtp, whatever...) and insert a "duplicate mail to host xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx folder something..." technic, or just change an existing opensource server to do that for you. 2. have a non-real-time backup solution (cronjobs, caching, whatever...) do the job on keeping them updated... for the switch in im somehow thinking on dns, mx entry, isnt there something like a backup mx entry? well, so much bout my thoughts, maybe someone else has better ideas, anyhow, i hope i wasnt too far away from it. > -- > H | I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere. > +-------------------------------------------------------------------- > Ashley M. Kirchner <mailto:ashley@xxxxxxxxxx> . 303.442.6410 x130 > IT Director / SysAdmin / WebSmith . 800.441.3873 x130 > Photo Craft Imaging . 3550 Arapahoe Ave. #6 > http://www.pcraft.com ..... . . . Boulder, CO 80303, U.S.A. > > > > -- > fedora-list mailing list > fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx > To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list > Greetings -- Oliver Leitner Technical Staff http://www.shells.at
