Re: Email with Dynamic IP address
- From: Owen Williams [SBS MVP] <Owen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2006 14:52:49 -0400
In article <1156058968.883679.71200@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
jcbrown@xxxxxxxxx says...
Would you tie in a POP3 connector service when there's a backup MX
hosted somewhere else? Maybe checking in every 1 or 2 hours?
The reason I ask, is because if you didn't have the POP connector
running, albeit redundantly, then how would you even know that there's
mail on the second MX server that needs to be retrieved?
I know of three ways to handle a backup MX. The first is what you suggest: the
backup server is queried occasionally via POP3. I actually use this myself.
My personal mail had been hosted at Yahoo for years so it was easy for me to
register a business domain name with them. The associated business e-mail was
originally hosted at Yahoo's mail servers and retrieved with POP3. It was easy
for me to change the DNS records to point the primary MX to my own SBS while
pointing secondary (and tertiary) MX records at Yahoo's servers. As you
suggest, I let the POP3 Connector continue to check for business e-mail even
though 99.9% of the time it is delivered directly to my server.
This approach definitely works. About a month ago I was on vacation and my
server shut down due to a 5-hour power outage. (The UPS could not keep it
running that long and the server did not auto-restart after the outage.) The
server was down for 5 days. However, when I returned, all of the mail sent
during the outage was retrieved by the POP3 Connector.
As I see it, the main negative with this approach is you still have to
administer the POP3 Connector. Not a big deal in my case - only 2 addresses
(personal & business) which only change if I want them to. It would be a
different story if an organization had 50 e-mail users and the employees change
frequently.
The second way to handle backup MX is to contract or subscribe to this specific
service. This is the more popular and "industrial-strength" method: once it's
set up, it should require little or no administration and maintenance. With
this method, the backup MX provider has one or more servers which receive your
mail when your server can't. If they do receive any mail for you, they
periodically (minutes to hours) attempt to resend the mail to the primary MX
(your SBS) until the send is successful or some time period expires. Most
backup MX providers will keep trying for 5 to 10 days, which is usually more
than adequate.
Some ISPs or web site hosters may provide this service, either as part of a
standard service agreement or for an additional fee. If not, there are MANY
other providers which offer this service. For example, I use DynDNS.com for
dynamic DNS support. They offer backup MX service for $29.95/year with no
limit on mail volume (http://www.dyndns.com/services/mailhop/backupmx.html).
This is just an example - there are numerous other choices.
The third way is to configure Exchange to periodically (usually every 1 to 4
hours) retrieve mail redirected to a backup MX server using ETRN. The backup
MX server must support this retrieval method, so you need to check with the
provider. If the provider supports ETRN, they should also be able to provide
the configuration details for your Exchange server. Or, see this:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs/browse_frm/t
hread/d5e77e3f0f056fb3/2ab0e8694a7c9c9e?lnk=st&q=&rnum=2&hl=en#2ab0e8694a7c9c9e
There has been some discussion in this newsgroup about using this method via
a cooperative mutual service agreement between two organizations, both of which
use SBS (or other Exchange servers). For example:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs/browse_frm/t
hread/3cb6f0fe496199f6/aee905985b89a5de?lnk=st&q=&rnum=13
&hl=en#aee905985b89a5de
In my opinion, given the simplicity, reliability, and low-cost of methods [1]
and [2], above, I think they are generally preferable to using ETRN.
-- Owen Williams [SBS MVP]
.
- References:
- Re: Email with Dynamic IP address
- From: Owen Williams [SBS MVP]
- Re: Email with Dynamic IP address
- From: Justin - synacs
- Re: Email with Dynamic IP address
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