Separate Mail and Webservers.

[SteamSHIFT]

My setup is as follows: Linux Webserver, Mac OS X Server running as Mail and Fileserver.

What I want to be able to do is set up the Mail server as the Primary Mail Server and then use the Webserver as the failover for email.

But if the webserver has any accounts that match those on the mail server and it is doing the sending (eg from a form script) then it gets the email not the mail server.

What do I do in order to ensure that as long as the mail server is OK, it always gets the email wherever it is sent from?

[ghostman]

I’m wondering if you really need to have the Linux system be a fully functional mail server.

Assuming you are using 10.3 Server, you can set up Postfix so the primary mail server runs on the Mac Server. The Linux box can have Postfix setup as a secondary mail queue. Set your public DNS to have your Mac as the MX record and the Linux box as the MX2 record. If the Mac fails, the Linux box would receive incoming mail and transfer the queue when the Mac comes back online.

The caveat – if your mail server fails, you won’t be able to read the new incoming mail until it is back online and you will have to do a SMTP dance if you need to send mail – but you won’t loose any mail.

[Author]

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