Mailing List Archive: Qmail: users

out going mail through 3 external mail servers

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webmaster at mastermindshosting

Oct 13, 2003, 11:18 AM

Post #1 of 8 (1347 views)
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out going mail through 3 external mail servers

What is the proper way to send all out going mail through 3 external mail relay servers? And is there a script that would distribute to each server evenly?
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Sammi & Brent Rigsby
Masterminds Hosting
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Current ICQ status:
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nelson at crynwr

Oct 13, 2003, 11:41 AM

Post #2 of 8 (1312 views)
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Re: out going mail through 3 external mail servers [In reply to]

Webmaster writes:
> What is the proper way to send all out going mail through 3
> external mail relay servers? And is there a script that would
> distribute to each server evenly?

What do you mean by "evenly"? In rotation? Or by load on the relays?
How many different sources of email do you have? Explain your
circumstances more and we'll have a better answer for you.

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webmaster at mastermindshosting

Oct 13, 2003, 12:57 PM

Post #3 of 8 (1306 views)
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Re: out going mail through 3 external mail servers [In reply to]

we have about 125,000 members mailing different times of the day just wanted
something that would send this request to this server the next one to the
next and repeat itself over and over again
----- Original Message -----
From: Webmaster
To: qmail [at] list
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 1:18 PM
Subject: out going mail through 3 external mail servers

What is the proper way to send all out going mail through 3 external mail relay servers? And is there a script that would distribute to each server evenly?
__________________________________________________________________
Sammi & Brent Rigsby
Masterminds Hosting
ICQ#: 140304221
Current ICQ status:
( Home Tel#: 225-294-3381
( Work Tel#: 1-866-370-1642
7 Fax#: 1-225-294-0277
+ More ways to contact me
__________________________________________________________________

glenn-qmail at delink

Oct 13, 2003, 1:07 PM

Post #4 of 8 (1300 views)
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Re: out going mail through 3 external mail servers [In reply to]

On Mon, Oct 13, 2003 at 02:57:11PM -0500, Webmaster may have written:
> we have about 125,000 members mailing different times of the day just
> wanted something that would send this request to this server the next
> one to the next and repeat itself over and over again

One thing you could do is set up multiple A records for the hostname you
give to your clients for smtp service. Keep the TTL low for these
records so DNS caches running on local systems consistently pick up new
IPs.

This is by no means a perfect solution, but it is a really cheap way to
do load-balancing. You might want to look into a clustering solutions
for the three machines if you want true load balancing.

--
Brian T Glenn
delink.net Internet Services

eric.woodworth at fairmarket

Oct 13, 2003, 1:14 PM

Post #5 of 8 (1310 views)
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RE: out going mail through 3 external mail servers [In reply to]

I use a cisco local director to balance 3 mail servers. Works great, super
easy to setup up, and you can get them very cheaply on ebay. You can even
buy 2 and set them up in a redundant pair if you're super concerned with
uptime.

-----Original Message-----
From: Webmaster [mailto:webmaster [at] mastermindshosting]
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 3:57 PM
To: qmail [at] list
Subject: Re: out going mail through 3 external mail servers

we have about 125,000 members mailing different times of the day just wanted
something that would send this request to this server the next one to the
next and repeat itself over and over again

matt at mattdavies

Oct 13, 2003, 1:35 PM

Post #6 of 8 (1326 views)
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Re: out going mail through 3 external mail servers [In reply to]

> we have about 125,000 members mailing different times of the day just wanted
> something that would send this request to this server the next one to the
> next and repeat itself over and over again

Yes, a Cisco load balancer or even an Ultra Monkey (ultramonkey.org) might work
well, but I am assuming you want to not kill one particular server sending all
the messages (inject the messages on 3 servers as opposed to injecting and then
distributing). I see the load balancing stuff as a good idea, but you have to
overcome the problem of running the script on one machine.

> What is the proper way to send all out going mail through 3 external mail
> relay servers? And is there a script that would distribute to each server
> evenly?

I'd propose putting all the addresses in a DB if they are not already. Use some
random function to assign them to 1..N servers. Then have a perl or php script
on each mail server suck down the addresses which are assigned to that server
along with the message (all on the database) and send them out on the server.
Use a schema something like

+-------------------+--------------+------+-----+---------------------+-------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------------------+--------------+------+-----+---------------------+-------+
|email |varchar(255) | | YES | | |
|server |int(10) | | | | |
+-------------------+--------------+------+-----+---------------------+-------+

and
+-------------------+--------------+------+-----+---------------------+-------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------------------+--------------+------+-----+---------------------+-------+
|timestamp |datetime | | YES | | |
|message |text | | | | |
+-------------------+--------------+------+-----+---------------------+-------+
(add some indication as to whether or not server x has sent the messages)

The clients will poll the server looking for new messages and send them
automagically.

This could scale to n servers if need be, but do you really have the bandwidth
to pump out that much email that fast?

If this doesn't make sense, please email me, and I'd be happy to discuss with
you more how this could function.

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webmaster at mastermindshosting

Oct 13, 2003, 1:36 PM

Post #7 of 8 (1315 views)
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Re: out going mail through 3 external mail servers [In reply to]

We are just waiting a good working situation until our data center is finished and we make all the appropriate connections. We have every thing in a private network so forwarding mail from one server to the other isn't the problem it is the right set up to be able to send all out going mail to one of the servers for the time being
----- Original Message -----
From: Woodworth, Eric
To: qmail [at] list
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 3:14 PM
Subject: RE: out going mail through 3 external mail servers

I use a cisco local director to balance 3 mail servers. Works great, super easy to setup up, and you can get them very cheaply on ebay. You can even buy 2 and set them up in a redundant pair if you're super concerned with uptime.
-----Original Message-----
From: Webmaster [mailto:webmaster [at] mastermindshosting]
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 3:57 PM
To: qmail [at] list
Subject: Re: out going mail through 3 external mail servers

we have about 125,000 members mailing different times of the day just wanted
something that would send this request to this server the next one to the
next and repeat itself over and over again

zacharyb at dnsfirm

Oct 13, 2003, 3:29 PM

Post #8 of 8 (1309 views)
Permalink

RE: out going mail through 3 external mail servers [In reply to]

We run a bunch of dating sites, with over 5 million members. And
constantly have atleast 150 to 250 thousand outbound messages daily.

I have on mail relay I call the director and then 2 others that it
passes mail off to. I would love to get a cisco load director, or find
something opensource similiar.

One qmail server could actually handle this but I have to run
qmail-qfilter to parse all the sent messages to make sure they are
logged and everything is ok.

I don't do a perfect balance, but I use smtproutes to send .com to one
server and .net , .org and everything else to the other server. It stays
pretty much balanced.

zack

On Mon, 2003-10-13 at 13:14, Woodworth, Eric wrote:
> I use a cisco local director to balance 3 mail servers. Works great,
> super easy to setup up, and you can get them very cheaply on ebay.
> You can even buy 2 and set them up in a redundant pair if you're super
> concerned with uptime.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Webmaster [mailto:webmaster [at] mastermindshosting]
> Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 3:57 PM
> To: qmail [at] list
> Subject: Re: out going mail through 3 external mail servers
>
>
> we have about 125,000 members mailing different times of the
> day just wanted
> something that would send this request to this server the next
> one to the
> next and repeat itself over and over again

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