Can i setup backup mail server using DNS records 1

[grahamhopper]

I would like to setup a mailserver on my network server, but I am a little concerned that my internet connection isn't 100% reliable.

I am not really sure what would happen if the mailserver was offline for any period of time, but to avoid dropping any emails can i set up an alternative MX record with a lower priority that would really only receive any mail if the main mail server failed.

 

[ShackDaddy]

Yes, you could do that. You'd have to have another mail server set up to receive the mail. But then you have the hassle of having mail in two places when there's an outage.

When I want to address the same problem, I use ZoneEdit to host my DNS. It costs around $10 a year or so, and I can add MailBackup service that queues my mail on a backup mail server there and waits for my server to come back online in the event of an outage. It works quite well. Essentially, they put a higher priority MX record in for their queuer, and normally mail flows right through it to my server. If my server is offline, mail just gets stored there for the hours/days that my server is offline. If I set up a new mail server at another IP address, I just change the MX record at ZoneEdit to point there, and the mail dequeues.

ShackDaddy