Email Server question (Linux based)
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Postfix is an MTA, an SMTP server. So literally an email server. But most people don't mean that when they say email server, they want an MTA plus a mailbox server and all kinds of other functions, like Exchange.
If you are just looking to do an MTA system, yeah, Postfix for sure. I've been using Postfix as my MTA of choice for 13 years now.
If you want an email system where you can receive mail and send mail and do what most people consider as email, you want Zimbra (which uses Postfix under the hood as its MTA.)
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Thanks!
So essentially I would (hypothetically) set up 5 Postfix's and 1 Zimbra.
(Yes I realize this is stupid redundancy)
Or since ZImbra is Postfix backend would I do 6 Zimbra, or 4 postfix 2 zimbra
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Depends what you want redundancy for. Postfix is what processing the incoming and outgoing mail, but is not what stores it. In Exchange, the DAG portion, the database, would be in Zimbra / Cyrus. Not in Postfix.
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I would want that 100% of the time I could send and receive emails.
So I would assume I would want atleast 2 Zimbra servers so I guess its just a matter of can 2 Zimbra's share 1 database.
I use to use Postfix so I know how awesome it is at storing emails.
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@Sparkum said in Email Server question (Linux based):
I would want that 100% of the time I could send and receive emails.
But if Postfix is up and Zimbra is not, how will you send?
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@Sparkum said in Email Server question (Linux based):
So I would assume I would want atleast 2 Zimbra servers so I guess its just a matter of can 2 Zimbra's share 1 database.
You would do two (or more) Zimbra servers in an HA configuration.
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@scottalanmiller
Oh so Zimbra does offer HA,Thats pretty sweet
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@Sparkum said in Email Server question (Linux based):
@scottalanmiller
Oh so Zimbra does offer HA,Thats pretty sweet
Thanks!Yes, there is some amount built in. Zimbra is designed to be deployed in many different ways. I've not used Zimbra's HA features but you can do this without Zimbra's help as well. You could use XenServer with HA-Lizard to do it. You could use application layer HA to do it. You could use DRBD plus Pacemaker to do it. You could install on a Scale HC3 and have it handled for you. Lots of ways to skin that cat.
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Not gonna lie...understood like 3% of what you just wrote.
But hey, I guess thats kinda why I'm doing this stuff in the first place.
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@Sparkum said in Email Server question (Linux based):
Not gonna lie...understood like 3% of what you just wrote.
But hey, I guess thats kinda why I'm doing this stuff in the first place.
XenServer with HA-Lizard = using the virtual machine host to handle HA between two Zimbra VMs
DRBD plus Pacemaker = Linux software running within the OS to handle the HA functions -
@Kelly
Awesome thanks! -
@scottalanmiller
Would you say Zimbra is resource intensive?Google box is saying 5-8GB of ram, that seems hefty to me.
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Zimbra is a bit like Exchange, you definitely want a few resources if you are going to run it in production. You've got the MTA, the mailbox server, the database, the directory, the spam handling, the antivirus, the web interface and more. There is a lot going on. Do you need 8GB, definitely not. But you don't want to install on 512MB either.
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@Sparkum said
Not gonna lie...understood like 3% of what you just wrote.
But hey, I guess thats kinda why I'm doing this stuff in the first place.
Welcome to my club!
