Re: how to make an intermediate machine receive mail while the destination is down?
Carlos Carvalho <carlos@fisica.ufpr.br> writes:
> I need to shutdown our main mail server for hardware changes, and I'd
> like that another machine in our department receives the mail and hold
> it until the main server is up again, and then sends the stored mail
> to the server. How can this be done? The temporary holder can be our
> gateway/dns, for example, so that packets already travel through it.
>
> Carlos
Well, you'll need to modify your MX dns record to point to the new
destination - you'll then need to tell the gateway machine that's
holding the mail explicitly how to route it, or else the machine
holding the mail will try to send it to itself, and mail will get
caught in a loop. How to do this depends on what mail software is on
your gateway/dns machine.
But why bother? If your main server is only going to be down for one
or two days, then there shouldn't be any problem in simply not having
something to hold the mail - if the sites sending the mail can't get
through to your mail server, they'll just hold it until they can get
through. Typically, what will happen is that people trying to send
mail to your site will only even notice that something's odd if your
server is down for three days (in that case, the person who sent the
mail will get something from their mail server saying "This message
has been undeliverable for 3 days; we'll keep trying for another 9
days"), and all the mail will get through if your main server is down
for less than twelve.
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: