Let's say I have an email account on mail5 which is set to forward to another address and the server that it is trying to forward to is down or otherwise not reachable. Two questions:
1) How long is it before the sender receives a bounce message?
2) How long will mail5 retry for until it finally gives up?
I thought I better ask those questions before I go ahead with something. I look after a Microsoft Exchange server and network for a small business. They have a dsl line and mail currently goes into 7 pop mailboxes which is read directly by MS Outlooks on desktops. I want to switch to direct smtp into Exchange for several reasons but we don't want to take JodoHost out of the loop by setting a direct dns MX record because we want to keep the spam filtering and also want to have a backup plan which we could fall back on quickly if our equipment or line fails. I've been churning this over in my mind thinking about various options and now, to quote Blackadder, I think I have a plan so cunning that you could put a tale on it and call it a weasel
Well, maybe its nothing new.
I haven't asked if its possible for JodoHost to set things so that their mail server forwards all mail for a domain to a specified host. Even if that's possible, I'd rather stick with what I can do with HSphere.
I define a MX record for something like exch.mydomain.com pointing to Exchange. For each user (there are only 7), I use HSphere to forward [email protected] to [email protected]. I do what's necessary on Exchange so that mail gets delivered to the correct user and their outgoing mail is "From" [email protected] so nobody knows about the subdomain.
I've tested it with dynamic dns on the dsl line and it worked just fine. I don't fell comfortable with dynamic dns for mail so we're hopefully getting a static IP this week. In an emergency I can easily switch some users back to pop or forward to a different address. No waiting for dns propagation. I also set our router / firewall to only accept smtp from mail5 so we won't get spam directly.
Does anyone see any flaws in my plan other than the need to maintain users in two places?
Cheers
Ross
1) How long is it before the sender receives a bounce message?
2) How long will mail5 retry for until it finally gives up?
I thought I better ask those questions before I go ahead with something. I look after a Microsoft Exchange server and network for a small business. They have a dsl line and mail currently goes into 7 pop mailboxes which is read directly by MS Outlooks on desktops. I want to switch to direct smtp into Exchange for several reasons but we don't want to take JodoHost out of the loop by setting a direct dns MX record because we want to keep the spam filtering and also want to have a backup plan which we could fall back on quickly if our equipment or line fails. I've been churning this over in my mind thinking about various options and now, to quote Blackadder, I think I have a plan so cunning that you could put a tale on it and call it a weasel
Well, maybe its nothing new.I haven't asked if its possible for JodoHost to set things so that their mail server forwards all mail for a domain to a specified host. Even if that's possible, I'd rather stick with what I can do with HSphere.
I define a MX record for something like exch.mydomain.com pointing to Exchange. For each user (there are only 7), I use HSphere to forward [email protected] to [email protected]. I do what's necessary on Exchange so that mail gets delivered to the correct user and their outgoing mail is "From" [email protected] so nobody knows about the subdomain.
I've tested it with dynamic dns on the dsl line and it worked just fine. I don't fell comfortable with dynamic dns for mail so we're hopefully getting a static IP this week. In an emergency I can easily switch some users back to pop or forward to a different address. No waiting for dns propagation. I also set our router / firewall to only accept smtp from mail5 so we won't get spam directly.
Does anyone see any flaws in my plan other than the need to maintain users in two places?
Cheers
Ross
