I have only 1 Exchange Server and 1 MX record, but I would like to have a
backup if the Exchange 2003 ever goes down, I still want users to be able to
send and receive mail (even if their primary mailbox is down).

Is this doable if so how? Keep in mind, we do not have the resources to
cluster, and we prefer not to outsource this. We were thinking of using a
"secondary" SMTP linux box (workstation class) -

If anyone could provide some advice, kindly appreciated. Thanks.

=) Joe (= wrote:
> I have only 1 Exchange Server and 1 MX record, but I would like to have a
> backup if the Exchange 2003 ever goes down, I still want users to be able to
> send and receive mail (even if their primary mailbox is down).
>
> Is this doable if so how? Keep in mind, we do not have the resources to
> cluster, and we prefer not to outsource this. We were thinking of using a
> "secondary" SMTP linux box (workstation class) -
>
> If anyone could provide some advice, kindly appreciated. Thanks.
>
>

Won't using the MX Priority do this - set your exchange server to be the
highest priorty (which IIRC is actually the lower number) - say 10 and
your backup as a lower priority say 100...

Richard.

Richard Horton wrote:
> =) Joe (= wrote:
>
>> I have only 1 Exchange Server and 1 MX record, but I would like to
>> have a backup if the Exchange 2003 ever goes down, I still want users
>> to be able to send and receive mail (even if their primary mailbox is
>> down).
>>
>> Is this doable if so how? Keep in mind, we do not have the resources
>> to cluster, and we prefer not to outsource this. We were thinking of
>> using a "secondary" SMTP linux box (workstation class) -
>>
>> If anyone could provide some advice, kindly appreciated. Thanks.
>>
>
> Won't using the MX Priority do this - set your exchange server to be the
> highest priorty (which IIRC is actually the lower number) - say 10 and
> your backup as a lower priority say 100...
>
> Richard.

As long as the second machine is configured to forward to the
exchange machine, they can have the same priority and you'd get some
load balancing.

Better yet, pull the exchange box behind your firewall and let one or
more postfix (for example) machines front-end it; that way you can drop
most of your spam & garbage before it gets to exchange, plus you're not
hanging an MS 'hack me please' Exchange target directly out there. I
use a setup like this, with postfix + amavisd, and it cuts down a *LOT*
of traffic from ever getting to the exchange box.

The real crunch is going to come in if you really expect the Linux
host to be able to take over in case the exchange machine melts down. I
am not personally familiar with any open source exchange replacement
that can do this transparently (which is not to say there isn't one.) I
suppose the long hard ugly way would be to duplicate all your user
accounts on a Linux host with IMAP or POP or some such configured, and
then have all the users reconfigure their mail clients in case of
emergency. *YUK!*

Assuming you use Active Directory, a slightly less painful
alternative might be to set up a machine with winbind. You would still
have the mail client reconfig to contend with, but at least you wouldn't
have to futz with accounts and passwords...

If that all seems too complicated, there's another wonderful disaster
recovery technology you might want to look into, called 'backup
tapes'... *grin, wink!* :-)