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Ask HN: What should I do now if my primary email server is offline?
Today my most important server has been offline for 2 hours, unable to receive any emails or access via ssh.
I checked nmap once all ports are open and now nothing works, not even gopher.
- sgt 4y agoJust wait until it's back up. Your mails should come in since all SMTP servers have retry settings.
- modinfo 4y agoAre you on the sdf team? I pay for sdfeu full member access every month and would never expect such a thing.
- mtmail 4y agoYes. If I remember correctly the email sending server try up to 4 days to deliver the emails to you (retrying) so a couple of hours, even a day of downtime, will be fine.
- atmosx 4y agoYou are assuming all SMTPs act in a compliance with the specifications. They don’t.
- Nextgrid 4y agoStart a VM at any provider (IP reputation doesn't matter for receiving), install an SMTP server on it configured to accept everything (but not relay) and add an MX record for it. This will at least allow you to receive mail until your primary comes back up.
- modinfo 4y agoThis is not a solution, of course I have a second email address on a dedicated server. https://github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver https://github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver
- Nextgrid 4y agoI'm not talking about a secondary email address. Switching the MX record around means that your primary address is able to receive emails again (and would receive the "lost" mail from the outage if it's still in senders' email servers caches). From the sender perspective this change would be invisible.
- toast0 4y agoNot enough information. If your server is offline, I suggest bringing it back online. Many sending servers won't retry for 5 days these days, so you'll likely miss out on mail unless you've got a secondary MX configured and online.