Backup mail servers

donlange

• January 28, 2015 13:58

Regarding an individual cPanel account on a VPS... is there a way to use two different mail servers at separate physical locations (e.g., one in NY and one in LA) such that one mail server functions as a backup to the primary mail server, [COLOR="#0000FF">if and only if the primary should fail? I'd like to use the mail server associated to my shared hosting account in City-A as the primary mail server and the mail server on my VPS account in City-B as the backup. In this case, the VPS account would serve the e-commerce website and since the VPS account costs more for me to operate, I want to use its mail server for mail emergencies only. Make sense?? :) Thanks, Don

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  cPanelMichael

  • January 30, 2015 13:27

  Hello :) Yes, it's possible to configure your MX records so that a secondary server is utilized in the event the primary mail server fails. This document explains how to change your MX records: Edit MX Entry Google provides a good tutorial on MX records. You can ignore the parts about their email service: [url=http://www.google.com/support/enterprise/static/postini/docs/admin/en/activate/mx_faq.html]FAQ: How MX Records Work One important note is that you have to manually configure the email accounts with the same passwords on the backup server. This does not happen automatically. Thank you.

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  donlange

  • January 30, 2015 23:11

  Thank you for the reply, cPanelMichael. I appreciate the links. I've been fiddling around and think I have things configured properly but noticed there are no messages in the inbox of the email account associated to webmail on the cPanel mailserver I've configured as the backup. Email is being delivered to the identical email account on the desktop client as expected. How can I be sure the backup server associated to webmail will intercept and deliver mail to the desktop client when the primary server goes down? I've been able to send email from webmail and a copy is saved to the sent folder. Anyway, thanks again for the links... perhaps they'll shed some light on the issue. Don

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  cPanelMichael

  • February 02, 2015 18:47

  Hello :) You would have to manually update the "A" record for the hostname in-use in the email client so it points to the backup mail server in the event the primary mail server fails. It's often easier to have your email hosted on an external mail service such as Google where it's already redundant if you don't want to create/manage the secondary mail server on your own. Thank you.

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