Is there a way to make qmail defer messages in the event of an NFS outage
that does *not* involve creating a user database?
The project I am working on involves three mail servers, each with an NFS
connection to the user directories. No user information is stored locally
on any of the machines; I use a modified version of qmail-getpw to validate
user names via the network (my company is willing to sacrifice the necessary
local bandwidth for this to work). Because there is no local storage of
information, keeping the user database updated would involve a periodic
query across the network for an updated list of user names. My company
feels/hopes that we will be servicing enough users to make this approach
impractical, as users will be constantly added and removed from the system.
So far my results have been successful. All is well when the network is
behaving itself, and qmail defers messages properly when qmail-getpw fails
due to a bad network connection. A contingency for a failed NFS mount is
one of my last hurdles to getting this all in place. I'm open to any ideas,
from .qmail tricks to code patching.
---Kris Kelley
