2nd mail server, DNS MX records records

Hello there,

Ok so i am planning to move our mail server out of virtualmin and to an active syncing and calendar sharing groupware. basically my questions are
1. I could possible have only one MX record point to the new mail server, but i am thinking incase of something going wrong with this new server i want to still be able to recieve email to my present server. So should i just create another MX record and manage this with the DNS mail priority number. Have higher priority for the newer server? is this the best practise?
2. I am wondering if there is an easier way to migrate emails from virtualmin based server to another one? any ideas ? i typically i just use outlook / thunderbird to migrate the emails manually.

Thanks

Status: 
Closed (fixed)

Comments

Howdy -- for most folks who want a backup email server, they have email queue up elsewhere until the primary email server is back online.

It would probably cause problems to have active mailboxes on your current server, if that current server is acting as a web server.

If that web server were to try to email one of your users, and there was an active mail box on the web server, it would deliver locally, rather than to your other mail server, even if the other mail server is listed first in the MX records.

I will offer that if you only had one MX record, the majority of mail servers will re-attempt delivery for several days, even if that mail server is offline. There's only a handful of servers out there that don't do that. So even if your primary mail server went offline and it took you a day or two to fix it, your email would come through after it came back online.

As far as migrating email is concerned, using Outlook like you described works well, and is simple.

If you don't mind using command line tools with lots of options, I'm a fan of imapsync:

https://github.com/imapsync/imapsync

ok thanks for simplifying it for me, will go with only one MX record and for migration will use outlook method of transferring our emails.. have only 5 account to worry about. Imapsync no no for now :)

Status: Active » Fixed (pending)
Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed - issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.