Backup MX is your safety net and overflow, it should only be used if the primary is down or too busy, and you are correct that most MTA's are set to retry at least a couple of times, I would venture most will periodically retry for no less than 4 hours. I run a small ISP without a backup MX (I know I should, but downtime is rare) and a mail volume of around 300K messages per day. It is always a good Idea to have a fast recovery plan for the server, without a backup MX, it's a little more important.
Thanks, Chuck Frolick ArgoLink.net -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Grant Griffith - IMail Sent: Friday, June 11, 2004 7:39 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] anti-spam software, recommendations? Just to make sure I am thinking correctly, if you do not have a backup MX then the sending server will just try to resend the email later for how ever many times it is set. I am guessing most systems will at least try for a few hours anyway and my servers are never down that long unless it would be something very bad. Basically I am running a backup MX on a Windows 2003 SMTP and using the Vamsoft ORF program, but it rejects emails if it fails a single Spam test and this is not working too well. Our server had to be rebooted last night and we have received a coupe of emails that were rejected by our backup mail server already this morning and it was only down for about 10 minutes. I was thinking about canceling the backup for now until we get our second IMail server running with the Declude/Sniffer checks and also maybe adding in the IMGate for these two systems. Any comments on if it might be OK to run without a backup MX for a month or two? Sincerely, Grant Griffith EI8HT LEGS Enhanced Web Management http://www.getafreewebsite.com 877-483-3393 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Len Conrad Sent: Friday, June 11, 2004 7:33 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IMail Forum] anti-spam software, recommendations? >The gold standard seems to be Declude Standard version, but the price >tag is >too hefty for me to push through with the boss (he wants to stop the >spam, but doesn't want to spend the money on tools to stop it, go >figure.) Declude >Late doesn't offer multi-hop support which seems to be a good chunk of >the stuff we are seeing. > A bunch comes in through out ISPs mail server which is acting as >secondary. Don't use a backup MX that cannot implement the same policies as the primary MX. You're paying the price of unfiltered spam, but how many times has the backup MX been useful when your primary MX has been down? So you could probably make a big reduction in spam, immediately and for free, by 1) removing the backup MX records from DNS and 2) telling the ISP to stop relaying your mail through that machine. Len _____________________________________________________________________ http://MenAndMice.com/DNS-training : Denver; NYC; San Jose http://IMGate.MEIway.com : free anti-spam gateway, runs on 1000's of sites To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
