[NTLUG:Discuss] Need advice: hosting email at home

[David Stanaway]

On Fri, 2002-04-19 at 17:10, Travis Bell wrote:
> Greetings fellow NTLUGers, I was wondering if I might pick your brains.
> 
> I want to host my email on my home server.  This machine is on battery backup
> and losing power isn't a problem unless the power goes out for an extended
> period of time.  The one problem I could face is that I'm on AT&T Broadband
> and they have changed to using DHCP.  However, in the entire time since they
> changed this policy, my IP has never changed.  Whether this has to do with the
> server never rebooting or them setting insanely long leases I do not know.
> 
> On to my question: What is the best route to take to ensure that I don't lose
> email in the case that either my connection goes down or my IP actually does
> change (whilst I change my DNS records)?  What potential problems exist that I
> haven't thought of when using my idea listed below?
> 
> This is what I figure I should do:
> Primary NS: ns1.granitecanyon.com (service restarted every 24 hours)
> * Have 2 MX records
>   - List my server as highest priority
>   - List a friend's mailserver (on NT - blech) as next priority
> Secondary NS: ns2.granitecanyon.com
> * Same as Primary NS
> 
> With this setup is there a way to have the secondary mail server move mail
> back to my server once it's back up?  When you have 2 MX records, does that
> mean it will always send to highest priority unless it can't, or would some
> mail go to the next server even if mine is up?  Should I change one of my Name
> Servers to my server or leave them at granitecanyon.com?  Any and all
> suggestions are welcome!


What you should do with your secondary MX is set it up so your email
domain is in its list of relay domains, but not its local domains. It
will then queue email it recieves for your mail domain and try and send
it to the primary MX a number of times depending on its configuration.


> I need to get this all set up and going by April 30 when AmExMail dumps my
> @usa.net account...

I was in a smilarish postion. I was given 5 days to relocate my domain,
and now it is on a 56k static dialup.

I have it set up as the primary DNS for the domain and primary MX, but
there is a secondary DNS and MX which is geographically seperated on a
totally different network.

If my laptop goes down, or ISP has problems.. most MTA's should try to
deliver to the next lowest priority numbered MX (Which will accept the
mail, as my domain is in its relay domain map, and will try and deliver
it to the lowest priority number MX).

I think if the MTA doesn't do that, then it is broken. I don't know of
any that are.

If your IP changes. You will need to contact whoever is doing secondary
DNS for you to let them know that your IP address has changed, so they
can update their masters setting for the zone in their bind config.

Good luck with this.

--
David Stanaway
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