MailEnable as secundairy SMTP server (2 MX records)

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Dirk B

MailEnable as secundairy SMTP server (2 MX records)

Post by Dirk B »

Hi,


Just checking if this is possible with MailEnable.

MX host1.domain.com 10
MX host2.domain.com 100

if host1 is down the mail will get to host2 (running mailenable). Will MailEnable be able to redirect the mail to host1 once host1 is back up?




dirk.

MailEnable
Site Admin
Posts: 4441
Joined: Tue Jun 25, 2002 3:03 am
Location: Melbourne, Victoria Australia

Post by MailEnable »

MailEnable's DNS resolved the MX records and uses them in ascending order. Hence, it will try 10 first and then 100 and so on.
Regards, Andrew

Dirk B

Post subject: MailEnable as secundairy SMTP server (2 MX rec

Post by Dirk B »

I'm not asking what it will do when it needs to send a mail to an outside domain.

The question is if the mailenable server is capable of acting as secundairy SMTP server (2nd MX) for a domain and once the primary is back up forward/flush all mail to the primary.

dirk.

MailEnable
Site Admin
Posts: 4441
Joined: Tue Jun 25, 2002 3:03 am
Location: Melbourne, Victoria Australia

Post by MailEnable »

I see - Yes. What you would need to do is smarthost the domain to the primary MX within MailEnable (which is serving the secondary MX). It will therefore hold the mail and attempt to deliver it to the primary (which it resolves by host name - not DNS). Unfortunately, you may need to disable Non Delivery Reports and Delay Notifications on the SMTP connector because the Delay notifications will be sent back to the user indicating that the message is queued - which you may not want. You may also want to adjust the message lifetime to ensure that the messages do not expire.

FYI: We are implementing the ability to disable Delay Notifications for smarthosted domains.
Regards, Andrew

Dirk B

MailEnable as secundairy SMTP server (2 MX records)

Post by Dirk B »

And can this be done with the "free" version?

(I'm looking at that once since the 2nd hosting provider I think of using is "bundling" mailenable standard with the plan)


dirk.

MailEnable
Site Admin
Posts: 4441
Joined: Tue Jun 25, 2002 3:03 am
Location: Melbourne, Victoria Australia

Post by MailEnable »

Yes - Standard Edition does this and the subsequent release will have the modification to inhibit NDRs and Delay notifications.
Regards, Andrew

Dirk B

MailEnable as secundairy SMTP server (2 MX records)

Post by Dirk B »

Thanks Dave.


Any idea when this "new" version will come out?


dirk.

wkalman

Secondary SMTP server settings

Post by wkalman »

I have multiple domains hosted using ME standard on my co-located server. I want to use another machine to act as a backup SMTP server in case the primary server goes down.

I read the message above about setting the secndary machine as a Smart Host but I want to set this up properly and not open it up inadvertantly to spammers. Can I get a quick walk-through on the ME settings on my secondary server to allow it to spool mail for these domains properly?

TIA,
Will Kalman

MailEnableNewbie

I agree

Post by MailEnableNewbie »

yes, I agree, a walk-through on this would be wonderful and greatly appreciated. Plus, we don't need any more spam, so doing this right with a simple walk-through would be helpful.

I'm in the same boat. I want ME to be a "backup" mail server for some domains that I have mail running on a different server. If that server should fail, I want mail to come to the "backup" mail server running ME, and then ME will keep trying to deliver it to the "primary" mail server for 5 days, or until delivered, whichever comes first.

But I don't want the "backup" mail server to handle any mail directly, nor do I want spammers to relay through it.

Help?

MDColson
Posts: 109
Joined: Sat Aug 23, 2003 8:29 pm

Post by MDColson »

It's actually pretty simple....

Assume this config: MX5 mail.domain.com and MX10 backup.domain.com (IS ALRADY SET UP IN YOUR DNS)

Its really simple... ON BACKUP.DOMAIN.COM >> You create a postoffice (or use an existing one), add a domain (domain.com) in that postoffice, double click on the domain, and check off the box that says act as smarthost, then click the button that says 'add' to add the host to forward the emails to... in this case you would add mail.domain.com... YOURE ALMOST DONE!!! Then go into the smtp properties under servers>localhost>connectors>smtp go to the 'advanced smtp' tab. Then adjust the timeout/retry numbers (for example reading down, my numbers are 20,20,168,1000,1,168,1 - this means my machine will try send the email every hour for an entire week 168hours and so on...) Then you just need to check off the 2 boxes that start with 'do not'... then you're done (this disables the failed attempt notices when it tries to send mail back up to mail.domain.com but it's still down) ...

This mailserver (backup.domain.com) will catch all of the email for domain.com when mail.domain.com goes down, it will try to redeliver it every hour for 7 days, when it goes back up it will forward all the mail back up to mail.domain.com.....

jammin
Posts: 30
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2003 8:06 am

Post by jammin »

You know what would be handy?

A utility to synchronise a mailenable server to a secondary server ... automatically creating any domains that don't exist, and setting them as SmartHosts.

It could be scheduled to run, and then we wouldn't have to worry about creating our backup domains .... they would be created automatically!

Of course we would still have to create secondary DNS MX records, but for those of us using control panels that is not a problem!

What do you think?

Cheers
Ben

jammin
Posts: 30
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2003 8:06 am

Post by jammin »

Oooh I just noticed something ..... please correct me if I am wrong..

On the backup mail server, I can set the "Smart Host" setting of the SMTP Service to forward all mail to the primary server, and check the "Domain smart hosting takes priority" option to on. (and of course increase the retries, disable messages etc)

That way, I don't need to create any of my domains on the secondary server ... it will automatically forward anything on to the primary when it awakes.

However I can still add specific domains on the secondary which need to be forwarded to a server other than my primary (eg a client who hosts their own mail and just wants backup service)

Is this right? If so, cool!

jammin
Posts: 30
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2003 8:06 am

Oh damn

Post by jammin »

Just realised ..... that means I have to enable open relaying on the secondary ... as it doesn't have any concept of local domains to accept mail for.

doh! Any way around this?

Merit
Posts: 29
Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2004 6:42 am

Post by Merit »

Yeah I was thinking the EXACT same thing tonight. That smart host tab in the SMTP properties page was what I thought would be the Holy grail... no deal.

You're right... you would have to allow it to act as a relay. Interestingly enough though I guess this would be ok as when the master comes back online it would reject any messages that aren't for local delivery and none of them would have authentication....

Hmm... I guess the only downside is that the secondary server COULD get listed as an open relay, even though it isn't technically.

Somebody out there must be doing this right... there is NO WAY larger hosts are entering these domains manually on their backup mail server.

Anybody?

jammin
Posts: 30
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2003 8:06 am

Post by jammin »

I wrote a script that copies all the domains from the primary server's domain.tab file, and creates each one in the secondary server's domain.tab as a smarthost domain (all pointing to the same IP).

It creates them all as domains within the one postoffice... which i think is fine since there are no actual accounts being created.

It's pretty dumb at the moment (it effectively blows away and re-adds all the domains on the secondary server each time it runs) however if anyone wants me to post it I'd be happy to.

It works for me as-is, since I don't use my secondary server for anything except backup.

Cheers
Jammin

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