4 ms·

Primary mailserver at home. Secondary MX in a VM at one of the services; it only stores mail if primary is down, otherwise relays immediately. Dovecot and Post

by dsr_ 4y ago

Primary mailserver at home. Secondary MX in a VM at one of the services; it only stores mail if primary is down, otherwise relays immediately. Dovecot and Postfix, SpamAssassin and ClamAV; greylisting, SPF and DMARC but not DKIM. I handle mail for my family, some friends, and a few mailing lists.

SteveNuts 4y ago
Do you have business class internet at home? I've always found that ports for SMTP are blocked on residential lines
- dsr_ 4y ago
  I have Verizon FIOS. Port 25 is fine. I may have called them at some point to get it opened, but I don't pay an extra fee for it.
xur17 4y ago
What setup / config do you use for your secondary MX? I host my mailserver at home, and would love to have a backup, ideally one that I can view the mail for via ssh when my primary is down.
- johnklos 4y ago
  Just rsync your spool files to another machine, and run pine / elm on that other machine.
- dsr_ 4y ago
  https://www.postfix.org/STANDARD_CONFIGURATION_README.html https://www.postfix.org/STANDARD_CONFIGURATION_README.html Look at the bit about "backup MX for a remote site". The specific thing you are asking for, however, isn't a backup MX so much as a second delivery to a local mailspool, which is also doable now that you know what it's called.
drdaeman 4y ago
If your primary has a tendency of going down an inconvenient times (like mine had), I highly recommend spending an hour (or three, if we’d include reading on the subject) setting up Dovecot replication with dsync. It’s pretty easy over a TCP connection (SSH for some reason didn’t work for me, so I’ve set up a Wireguard VPN between my hosts - also allows me to replicate KeyDB for Rspamd without having to set up a PKI for it), and works like a charm - backup MX receives mail if primary is down, and uses local Dovecot replica for delivery. When primary comes back online dsync makes sure they’re both consistent copies.

by dsr_ 4y ago

SteveNuts 4y ago

Do you have business class internet at home? I've always found that ports for SMTP are blocked on residential lines

dsr_ 4y ago
I have Verizon FIOS. Port 25 is fine. I may have called them at some point to get it opened, but I don't pay an extra fee for it.

xur17 4y ago

What setup / config do you use for your secondary MX? I host my mailserver at home, and would love to have a backup, ideally one that I can view the mail for via ssh when my primary is down.

johnklos 4y ago
Just rsync your spool files to another machine, and run pine / elm on that other machine.
dsr_ 4y ago
https://www.postfix.org/STANDARD_CONFIGURATION_README.html https://www.postfix.org/STANDARD_CONFIGURATION_README.html Look at the bit about "backup MX for a remote site". The specific thing you are asking for, however, isn't a backup MX so much as a second delivery to a local mailspool, which is also doable now that you know what it's called.

drdaeman 4y ago

If your primary has a tendency of going down an inconvenient times (like mine had), I highly recommend spending an hour (or three, if we’d include reading on the subject) setting up Dovecot replication with dsync. It’s pretty easy over a TCP connection (SSH for some reason didn’t work for me, so I’ve set up a Wireguard VPN between my hosts - also allows me to replicate KeyDB for Rspamd without having to set up a PKI for it), and works like a charm - backup MX receives mail if primary is down, and uses local Dovecot replica for delivery. When primary comes back online dsync makes sure they’re both consistent copies.