High Availability Mail Server (sort of)

[gw1500se]

I have a pair of OD servers that I am trying to configure to provide a warm failover (warm because it will be somewhat manual). These servers are XSAN client machines and I am trying to figure out how to force the mail server to use the SAN for its mail files rather then /var on the boot HD. Is there a config file somewhere that contains the path for the mail db and associated directories so that I can respecify them to be on the SAN? I looked in the postfix config files but I suspect they must be in a cyrus config file somewhere. TIA.

[maccanada]

The settings are in /etc/imapd.conf
configdirectory: /var/imap
partition-default: /var/spool/imap

However, you may be better off storing stuff on a RAID and simply running a script to re-zone the storage to your second server…or go direct and simply unplug the cable from the dead server and plug it into your standby machine. Apple does not support 10.3 or 10.4 mail servers with storage on Xsan volumes:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301640

Cyrus murder is also designed to separate front-end/back-end servers for this kind of fault-tolerance/load-balancing role.

[gw1500se]

Thanks. That was the info I was looking for. Not supporting something and it actually not working are not quite the same thing. Thanks for the advisory and we will be doing lots (with crossed fingers) of extra testing to make sure it works. Unfortuantely, we don’t have the machines to let the backup server sit idle. It does need to be on the network. The plan is to just change the IP address on the backup server. However, unless both machines have access to the same mail database users will be missing mail as the server is switched back and forth (thus the reason we hope to use our SAN. Our business depends heavily on email.

[gw1500se]

Thanks. That was bascially where I am headed but rather then mounting a RAID I will be mounting a SAN, which is on an XRAID. However, I have another problem with XSAN. It seems it takes 20 mintues or more to mount the volume after a restart. I’m calling apple on this one.

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