On Tue, Apr 10, 2001 at 09:07:30AM -0700, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
> Or you discard the primary and just start using the secondary
> immediately.
Depending on your configuration, and there seem to be as many
configurations as there are system adminstrators, it may not be as
simple as "just start using the secondary".
If you have local users on the primary that are not on the secondary,
you have additional work. If you have a virtual domain setup with large
numbers of POP boxes that are not mirrored on the secondary, you have
additional work. If you authenticate from LDAP and slapd is (was!) on
the primary, you have additional work.
> In general, using a secondary gives you more control over what happens
> when the primary goes down.
Certainly.
> Also, using a secondary means that when the primary comes back up, a
> quick `qmail-tcpok; svc -a /service/qmail' will bring all the mail
> over to the primary immediately; you don't have to wait for varying
> timeouts across the Internet.
Again, absolutely true.
For the record, I have secondaries for all domains for which I admin
mail. My comments were to point out that others felt differently and
that, while secondaries are convenient, if the primary will be back up
in a day or two, the SMTP architecture works just fine without them.
It's designed to.
Tim
