RE: Value of backup MX
Quoting Steve Drees <drees@rangebroadband.com>:
> John Goerzen <> wrote:
> > I'm looking at redoing my mail setup due primarily to spam filtering.
> > Over at http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Spam-Filtering-for-MX/multimx.html,
> > they are suggesting not to use redundant mail servers unless needed
> > for load balancing.
>
> This is poor advice.
>
>
> > It seems to make a lot of sense to me, but it seems too that I must be
> > missing something.
>
> I'd suggest having a backup MX but make sure you have all the filtering at
> your backup that you have at your primary.
>
Definately agree... My MX's do all of my mail scanning. They are several ways to
keep them in sync. I keep all my configs in a mysql database on my mailstore
that is replicated to my MX's, I'm sure everyone has their preferred method of
doing this. I chose my setup, because I do lots of mysql development. Someone
mentioned the backup MX being out of sync... They don't have to be in perfect
sync, a backup MX could have a bayes databases a day or two behind, or not be
accepting mail for a few new customer and it would not bother me a bit, but a
backup MX handling bounces or queing up tens of thousands of emails to hammer
my
mailstores(or in your case primaryMX) when they come back online, and using my
resources to assist a spammer or DOS an innocent bystander is unacceptable.
--
Darrel O'Pry
Systems Administrator
Thing.net Communications, LLC
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