[exim] Exim multi-server architecture with NAS

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Author: Robert Blayzor
Date:  
To: exim-users
Subject: [exim] Exim multi-server architecture with NAS
I'm looking to setup several Exim MX VM servers to deliver mail to
mailbox storage in Maildir++ on FreeNAS.

Will be using Dovecot for the IMAP/POP and LMTP delivery. My main goal
is to keep the MX's accepting mail should for whatever reason the NAS
appliance go offline.

That would mean that direct NFS mounts are out. (or is it?)

I was kicking around running Dovecot LMTP/LDA on a jail directly on in a
NAS jail (freeNAS) and then just use SMTP/LMTP transport from the MX
servers to the LMTP server running in the NAS jail. This way if for some
reason the NAS goes down; SMTP protocol would just time out or fail and
the MX server would queue/retry delivery later.

Would this be a valid design and what are the caveats? What would a
better design option be?

One caveat I have run into is that we will have multiple NAS appliances
holding mailboxes across multiple domains. This raises the issue of the
Exim router looking at the mailbox user and knowing which NAS/LMTP
server to deliver the mail to. This may be something as simple as
putting a value along with the user in the database....

Wondering what other may have done with similar deployments...


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