Creating backup email server

[rsheshappa]

Hello all,

We have Windows 2000 SBS. We are running Exchange server. We would like to set up a offsite Linux box as backup email server. The idea is not to bounce emails if our MX goes down for a while.

Any idea on how to go about it? If the information is already available somwehere here please point me.

Thanks

 

[ntinlin]

At first thought I don't think you can do that. You'd have to have the Linux box as your main SMTP gateway for receiving mail which it would then pass to your XC server.
This would also leave you with a single point of failure.

i.e. Your outside world DNS MX record would point to the linux box.

Some ISP's can also hold mail for you. i.e. MX records points to one of their servers and you then pick up mail from there, although you would send out directly from your own server. Used to be popular back in the days when small business servers would dial-up to pick up their mail rather than being online all the time.

Hope this helps.
Neill

 

[chrisstyles]

ntinlin is kind of right, but as long as you had a separate ip address, you could put an MX record in DNS for your Linux server with a higher number (can't for the life remeber what it's called as I've just downed a few beers).

This way the Linux server would collect mail only if the primary exchange server could not be contacted.

As for the ISP holding your mail, this is called Store and Forward, any decent ISP should offer this service. If you run with somone like message labs (highly recommended) they will do this as a matter of course. Gives you about three days and is very handy when it comes to moving your ex boxes to new hardware.

As for the linux question (as it started off) I have no experience of Linux or any software (presumably send mail). However I suggest you address this in a linus forum as I bet it ain't that hard to do. All you want is the Linux box to perform the store and forward function.

Hope that helps a bit anyway.

Cheers

P.S. the word I was looking for is Metric.

Chris.

Chris Styles

NT4/2000 MCSE

 

[wallst32]

rsheshappa - Create an MX record with a higher preference number to the backup SMTP gateway. If your primary mailserver/MX is unavailable, mail will be directed and queued up on the backup. Depending on what SMTP you use, there should be several options on how it handles mail; how long to hold it for before sending NDR, where to forward the mail to, on what schedule, how many times before giving up... etc. But the bottom line is you must configure it to send all mail for your domain to your mail server, usually this is called a smarthost.

 

[Marcs41]

You don't even need all that SMTP gateway stuff, just makes it complicated.
IF you forward your port 25 of your router/firewall to your Exchange server IP address, all you need to do is to change the forward in case of downtime.
However, THIS one is NOT automatic though, but it has no hassle about it.

As for the other proposals, the only way you can do that is as wallst32 discribes, you need 2 MX records, the highest one for the 'real' server, the other for the backup.

Smarthost is to be configured for outgoing mail on the Excahge server, that way your ISP handles the delivery. If a server is down somewhere, you don't have to worry about it.

Marc
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