Re: [qmailtoaster] Re: backup question
On 07/01/2012 07:59 PM, Eric Shubert wrote: On 07/01/2012 07:47 PM, Maxwell Smart wrote: Rsync is appropriate for backing up mail stores and configurations (mysql database needs to be addressed separately). I don't see it playing a role in HA configurations, except for providing backups, which should still be done. HA, like raid, is *not* a backup solution. I fail to understand why two identical servers in separate locations doesn't qualify as a backup solution. Both servers have secondary backup hard drives with duplicated data and the second server takes the place of the first if the first is ever broken. Why is that not desirable? I didn't say that's not desirable. I said it is not a backup solution. As soon as the second server takes the place of the first, where's your backup? I am curious, what would you do? - To unsubscribe, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-unsubscr...@qmailtoaster.com For additional commands, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-h...@qmailtoaster.com
[qmailtoaster] Re: backup question
On 07/01/2012 09:01 PM, Maxwell Smart wrote: On 07/01/2012 07:59 PM, Eric Shubert wrote: On 07/01/2012 07:47 PM, Maxwell Smart wrote: Rsync is appropriate for backing up mail stores and configurations (mysql database needs to be addressed separately). I don't see it playing a role in HA configurations, except for providing backups, which should still be done. HA, like raid, is *not* a backup solution. I fail to understand why two identical servers in separate locations doesn't qualify as a backup solution. Both servers have secondary backup hard drives with duplicated data and the second server takes the place of the first if the first is ever broken. Why is that not desirable? I didn't say that's not desirable. I said it is not a backup solution. As soon as the second server takes the place of the first, where's your backup? On the backup drive on the second server :) When you say 'backup drive', is that a raid mirror on the 2nd host? If so, it's not a backup. Any drive that's live (or can become live in a recovery situation) should not be considered to be a backup. Well, your in crisis mode at that point scrambling to get server 1 back up. Nothing is ever ideal when it comes to computers, Simply not true. Nothing is perfect, but ideal is achievable. but it would suffice in my situation Which is what you need to be concerned with. One size does not fit all. -- -Eric 'shubes' - To unsubscribe, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-unsubscr...@qmailtoaster.com For additional commands, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-h...@qmailtoaster.com
[qmailtoaster] Re: backup question
On 07/01/2012 11:16 PM, Maxwell Smart wrote: On 07/01/2012 07:59 PM, Eric Shubert wrote: On 07/01/2012 07:47 PM, Maxwell Smart wrote: Rsync is appropriate for backing up mail stores and configurations (mysql database needs to be addressed separately). I don't see it playing a role in HA configurations, except for providing backups, which should still be done. HA, like raid, is *not* a backup solution. I fail to understand why two identical servers in separate locations doesn't qualify as a backup solution. Both servers have secondary backup hard drives with duplicated data and the second server takes the place of the first if the first is ever broken. Why is that not desirable? I didn't say that's not desirable. I said it is not a backup solution. As soon as the second server takes the place of the first, where's your backup? I am curious, what would you do? - I don't have a requirement for the highest level of availability. My users can get along without access to email for a couple hours (occasionally, not regularly), so I don't have a hot spare with their emails stored on it. That'd be nice of course, but it's just not worth the time and effort setting it up and maintaining it. The production host is reliable enough that it provides sufficient availability. I do have a backup MX which can receive and relay incoming messages in the event that the primary goes down. This merely provides quicker access to messages which would be sent while the primary is down, and is not very critical. Sending servers will typically keep messages in their queue for 12+ hours (which I personally think is excessive). I backup user and configuration data to a raid-1 mirror which is at a separate location, using rsync that runs as a cron job. The backup datasets never go live. They're only used for disaster recovery, and occasionally (but more often) when a user inadvertently deletes a mail folder or messages. Backups should provide this type of recoverability, which HA setups do not do on their own. Hence, HA is not a backup solution. -- -Eric 'shubes' - To unsubscribe, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-unsubscr...@qmailtoaster.com For additional commands, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-h...@qmailtoaster.com
Re: [qmailtoaster] Re: backup question
On 06/27/2012 06:27 PM, Eric Shubert wrote: On 06/27/2012 05:14 PM, Cecil Yother, Jr. wrote: I have two servers, server A and server B. They are both Centos 5.8, built on the V2gnu iso. They are basically identical with all updates. I have about a dozen e mail domains on server A and 2 e mail domains on server B. Can I run the qtp-backup on server B and restore those on server A so that all my mail domains reside on one server? TIA -- Not without a bit of modification. The backup is ok, but qtp-restore is written load from scratch. With a bit of tweaking you should be able to get it to do a non-destructive restore. The database load would need to be changed to merge the backup in with the existing database, as would various control files such as rcpthosts, morercpthosts, virtualdomains, and the users/assign file (and don't forget the cdb file for that one). That would be a nice feature for qtp-restore actually, have it ask if you want to add the domains to the existing configuration or clean out the existing configurations. It might be simpler to create the domains manually though, write a script to add the users to the target host (or add them manually too), then simply rsync /home/vpopmail/domains/ from the old to the new host. This would be the safest route I'm guessing. You could test out the target after doing the initial rsync, then do a final rsync (which would be fast) when you're ready to cut over. OK, I chose the easy solution. I created the accounts on the machine with existing accounts, created a new account in Thunderbird and copied the mail from the old account to the new account. This went rather quickly and was relatively painless. Is Unison as described in the wiki still the recommended way of creating a failover / duplicate server? Is rsync an option? --
[qmailtoaster] Re: backup question
On 07/01/2012 09:40 AM, Maxwell Smart wrote: On 06/27/2012 06:27 PM, Eric Shubert wrote: On 06/27/2012 05:14 PM, Cecil Yother, Jr. wrote: I have two servers, server A and server B. They are both Centos 5.8, built on the V2gnu iso. They are basically identical with all updates. I have about a dozen e mail domains on server A and 2 e mail domains on server B. Can I run the qtp-backup on server B and restore those on server A so that all my mail domains reside on one server? TIA -- Not without a bit of modification. The backup is ok, but qtp-restore is written load from scratch. With a bit of tweaking you should be able to get it to do a non-destructive restore. The database load would need to be changed to merge the backup in with the existing database, as would various control files such as rcpthosts, morercpthosts, virtualdomains, and the users/assign file (and don't forget the cdb file for that one). That would be a nice feature for qtp-restore actually, have it ask if you want to add the domains to the existing configuration or clean out the existing configurations. It might be simpler to create the domains manually though, write a script to add the users to the target host (or add them manually too), then simply rsync /home/vpopmail/domains/ from the old to the new host. This would be the safest route I'm guessing. You could test out the target after doing the initial rsync, then do a final rsync (which would be fast) when you're ready to cut over. OK, I chose the easy solution. I created the accounts on the machine with existing accounts, created a new account in Thunderbird and copied the mail from the old account to the new account. This went rather quickly and was relatively painless. Is Unison as described in the wiki still the recommended way of creating a failover / duplicate server? I don't know that there's any one recommended way. It depends on what your needs are. Unison can be appropriate in some instances. Dovecot is doing some interesting development in the area of high availability mail stores. I would take a look at what's going on there. I think the important thing to do when setting up a high availability mail solution is to separate components in a meaningful way before trying to provide redundancy. This is because each component presents different challenges regarding redundancy. For instance, a redundant submission server is rather trivial compared to a redundant imap or storage server. A typical separation is between the front end and back end (storage) components, at least as a first step. Once you have front and back end separation, replication of each would mean having 4 hosts. So the BL here is that while QMT is presently often a single host setup, using 2 self-contained QMT hosts is likely not the best approach to building a HA solution. I'm presently working on a design of QMT components such that they'll be loosely coupled, and able to be combined more easily into a HA solution. I expect to be publishing this on the devel list in a few months or so. Stay tuned for that. Is rsync an option? Rsync is appropriate for backing up mail stores and configurations (mysql database needs to be addressed separately). I don't see it playing a role in HA configurations, except for providing backups, which should still be done. HA, like raid, is *not* a backup solution. -- -Eric 'shubes' - To unsubscribe, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-unsubscr...@qmailtoaster.com For additional commands, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-h...@qmailtoaster.com
Re: [qmailtoaster] re: backup question
Hi Hey when you send an image through a mail server this is the rule that's triggered .. 1.7 HTML_IMAGE_ONLY_08 BODY: HTML: images with 400-800 bytes of words It's enough to trigger my spam defences .. On 28/06/2012 10:14 AM, Cecil Yother, Jr. wrote: I have two servers, server A and server B. They are both Centos 5.8, built on the V2gnu iso. They are basically identical with all updates. I have about a dozen e mail domains on server A and 2 e mail domains on server B. Can I run the qtp-backup on server B and restore those on server A so that all my mail domains reside on one server? TIA --
Re: [qmailtoaster] Re: backup question
On 07/01/2012 10:46 AM, Eric Shubert wrote: On 07/01/2012 09:40 AM, Maxwell Smart wrote: On 06/27/2012 06:27 PM, Eric Shubert wrote: On 06/27/2012 05:14 PM, Cecil Yother, Jr. wrote: I have two servers, server A and server B. They are both Centos 5.8, built on the V2gnu iso. They are basically identical with all updates. I have about a dozen e mail domains on server A and 2 e mail domains on server B. Can I run the qtp-backup on server B and restore those on server A so that all my mail domains reside on one server? TIA -- Not without a bit of modification. The backup is ok, but qtp-restore is written load from scratch. With a bit of tweaking you should be able to get it to do a non-destructive restore. The database load would need to be changed to merge the backup in with the existing database, as would various control files such as rcpthosts, morercpthosts, virtualdomains, and the users/assign file (and don't forget the cdb file for that one). That would be a nice feature for qtp-restore actually, have it ask if you want to add the domains to the existing configuration or clean out the existing configurations. It might be simpler to create the domains manually though, write a script to add the users to the target host (or add them manually too), then simply rsync /home/vpopmail/domains/ from the old to the new host. This would be the safest route I'm guessing. You could test out the target after doing the initial rsync, then do a final rsync (which would be fast) when you're ready to cut over. OK, I chose the easy solution. I created the accounts on the machine with existing accounts, created a new account in Thunderbird and copied the mail from the old account to the new account. This went rather quickly and was relatively painless. Is Unison as described in the wiki still the recommended way of creating a failover / duplicate server? I don't know that there's any one recommended way. It depends on what your needs are. Unison can be appropriate in some instances. Dovecot is doing some interesting development in the area of high availability mail stores. I would take a look at what's going on there. I think the important thing to do when setting up a high availability mail solution is to separate components in a meaningful way before trying to provide redundancy. This is because each component presents different challenges regarding redundancy. For instance, a redundant submission server is rather trivial compared to a redundant imap or storage server. A typical separation is between the front end and back end (storage) components, at least as a first step. Once you have front and back end separation, replication of each would mean having 4 hosts. So the BL here is that while QMT is presently often a single host setup, using 2 self-contained QMT hosts is likely not the best approach to building a HA solution. I'm presently working on a design of QMT components such that they'll be loosely coupled, and able to be combined more easily into a HA solution. I expect to be publishing this on the devel list in a few months or so. Stay tuned for that. A high availability solution is not required, nor is separation. I have a very small server, less than a dozen domains with just over 2GB of mail. A reliable secondary machine that is identical to primary machine would suffice. Is rsync an option? Rsync is appropriate for backing up mail stores and configurations (mysql database needs to be addressed separately). I don't see it playing a role in HA configurations, except for providing backups, which should still be done. HA, like raid, is *not* a backup solution. I fail to understand why two identical servers in separate locations doesn't qualify as a backup solution. Both servers have secondary backup hard drives with duplicated data and the second server takes the place of the first if the first is ever broken. Why is that not desirable? - To unsubscribe, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-unsubscr...@qmailtoaster.com For additional commands, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-h...@qmailtoaster.com
[qmailtoaster] Re: backup question
On 07/01/2012 07:47 PM, Maxwell Smart wrote: Rsync is appropriate for backing up mail stores and configurations (mysql database needs to be addressed separately). I don't see it playing a role in HA configurations, except for providing backups, which should still be done. HA, like raid, is *not* a backup solution. I fail to understand why two identical servers in separate locations doesn't qualify as a backup solution. Both servers have secondary backup hard drives with duplicated data and the second server takes the place of the first if the first is ever broken. Why is that not desirable? I didn't say that's not desirable. I said it is not a backup solution. As soon as the second server takes the place of the first, where's your backup? -- -Eric 'shubes' - To unsubscribe, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-unsubscr...@qmailtoaster.com For additional commands, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-h...@qmailtoaster.com
Re: [qmailtoaster] Re: backup question
On 07/01/2012 07:59 PM, Eric Shubert wrote: On 07/01/2012 07:47 PM, Maxwell Smart wrote: Rsync is appropriate for backing up mail stores and configurations (mysql database needs to be addressed separately). I don't see it playing a role in HA configurations, except for providing backups, which should still be done. HA, like raid, is *not* a backup solution. I fail to understand why two identical servers in separate locations doesn't qualify as a backup solution. Both servers have secondary backup hard drives with duplicated data and the second server takes the place of the first if the first is ever broken. Why is that not desirable? I didn't say that's not desirable. I said it is not a backup solution. As soon as the second server takes the place of the first, where's your backup? On the backup drive on the second server :) Well, your in crisis mode at that point scrambling to get server 1 back up. Nothing is ever ideal when it comes to computers, but it would suffice in my situation - To unsubscribe, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-unsubscr...@qmailtoaster.com For additional commands, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-h...@qmailtoaster.com
[qmailtoaster] re: backup question
I have two servers, server A and server B. They are both Centos 5.8, built on the V2gnu iso. They are basically identical with all updates. I have about a dozen e mail domains on server A and 2 e mail domains on server B. Can I run the qtp-backup on server B and restore those on server A so that all my mail domains reside on one server? TIA --
[qmailtoaster] Re: backup question
On 06/27/2012 05:14 PM, Cecil Yother, Jr. wrote: I have two servers, server A and server B. They are both Centos 5.8, built on the V2gnu iso. They are basically identical with all updates. I have about a dozen e mail domains on server A and 2 e mail domains on server B. Can I run the qtp-backup on server B and restore those on server A so that all my mail domains reside on one server? TIA -- Not without a bit of modification. The backup is ok, but qtp-restore is written load from scratch. With a bit of tweaking you should be able to get it to do a non-destructive restore. The database load would need to be changed to merge the backup in with the existing database, as would various control files such as rcpthosts, morercpthosts, virtualdomains, and the users/assign file (and don't forget the cdb file for that one). That would be a nice feature for qtp-restore actually, have it ask if you want to add the domains to the existing configuration or clean out the existing configurations. It might be simpler to create the domains manually though, write a script to add the users to the target host (or add them manually too), then simply rsync /home/vpopmail/domains/ from the old to the new host. This would be the safest route I'm guessing. You could test out the target after doing the initial rsync, then do a final rsync (which would be fast) when you're ready to cut over. -- -Eric 'shubes' - To unsubscribe, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-unsubscr...@qmailtoaster.com For additional commands, e-mail: qmailtoaster-list-h...@qmailtoaster.com
