Filed with Developers Allow DNSONLY to serve as a Backup/Secondary Mail Exchanger [Case 54563]

[dwykofka]

It seems like it might be a good idea to allow DNSONLY installs to act as a backup MX server to store and forward messages if a cpanel server goes offline.

Maybe it's a good idea to allow us to enable this function per domain as well so we can up-sell the service to our customers. Perhaps the end users could access the store and forward server via web interface as well. At the very least we would need some type of admin interface to force a que run or forward off the email to other addresses.

[sneader]

A third party (NDC Host / cplicensing.net) offers a product that adds secondary MX to your DNSOnly servers. Unfortunately, the product license cannot be purchased -- you must pay a $10/mo fee to keep the license active.

Look for the 'External sMx License' on this page:

cPlicensing: Licensing Options and Pricing

It is described as:

sMxPanel allows admins to easily establish a trust between the secondary MX Server and there productions cPanel Servers. sMxPanel connects to your cPanel servers over port 2087 (secure WHM) and pulls a list of domains on each server. It then takes this list and feeds it to exim which tells exim accepts mail received for those domains. Exim then trys to deliver the message to the primary server and if the connection is unsuccessful it stores the message until a specified time limit when it then retrys to deliver the message.

They also offer hosted DNSOnly and DNSOnly+sMx hosting.

I am not affiliated with this company -- just letting you know about it, in case it is of interest.

- Scott

[dwykofka]

Not sure I trust this solution. I dont know anything about the company that is providing the solution. I am really looking for a cpanel based solution before I roll something like this out to all of my clients.

The pricing seems fine, that's not an issue at all. I just dont want to get stuck in a situation where cpanel makes a change to the dns-only subsystem that breaks this piece of software that I have rolled out.

[sneader]

I've had a great relationship with NDCHost / cplicensing in the past. I would not hesitate to recommend them. However, I do not have any specific experience with their backup mx solution.

- Scott

[dwykofka]

I am going to check this out, I was really looking for a solution that allowed end users to log in and manage their mail and all that jazz like a full service provider but this might work.

[bornonline]

Why won't cPanel build this into DNSOnly? Man that would be Nice!

[shaun]

dwykofka, we've been around a long time! In fact were one of cPanels oldest distributors. Like Scott said, we do offer a WHM plug-in that will allow you to use a DNS-ONLY install (or the full version) of cPanel as a mail spooler. Our scripts utilize cPanels API to retrieve the information it needs from the primary servers and we do our best to keep how much it relies on cPanel to a minimum. Actually the very first version of our SMX system didn't even use cPanel! The main reason we migrated it over to cPanel/WHM was the fact that if you have a redundant MX, you better have redundant name-servers. Allowing the SMX system to run on a DNS-Only install now means that customers can use the SMX server for both a redundant MX and redundant name-server.

cPlicensing.net (sister company of NDCHost) is old, everything on it is currently being ported over to NDCHost.com. The link to the SMX system is at NDCHost - cPanel/WHM Secondary MX Plugin

Also NOTE, the self-hosted SMX license is FREE to any existing customers. So if you use us as your external cPanel license provider then you get the plug-in for free.

[cPanelDon]

As a friendly reminder, please keep the discussion on-topic regarding ideas and suggestions surrounding the feature request; to help accomplish this goal, please direct support inquiries about third-party plug-ins to the applicable vendor's official channels of support and refer to the vendor's published web site for contact information. Thank you for your understanding.

[shaun]

As a friendly reminder, please keep the discussion on-topic regarding ideas and suggestions surrounding the feature request; to help accomplish this goal, please direct support inquiries about third-party plug-ins to the applicable vendor's official channels of support and refer to the vendor's published web site for contact information. Thank you for your understanding.

Dan, sorry... it started off as a feature request somebody mentioned our product and we replied. Maybe we should move this thread to "cPanel and WHM Discussions" since that's probably a better area for it?

[cPanelDon]

To help reduce possible confusion and better organize discussion a number of posts have been copied or moved into a thread dedicated to the third-party WHM plug-in that was mentioned.

For reference and quick access, here is the aforementioned thread dedicated to the third-party WHM plug-in:

• Add mail redundancy to your servers! - cPanel Forums

[arhs]

Any update on this?

[Zepplin]

It seems like it might be a good idea to allow DNSONLY installs to act as a backup MX server to store and forward messages if a cpanel server goes offline.

Maybe it's a good idea to allow us to enable this function per domain as well so we can up-sell the service to our customers. Perhaps the end users could access the store and forward server via web interface as well. At the very least we would need some type of admin interface to force a que run or forward off the email to other addresses.

I second this

[Spiral]

If a cpanel server goes offline, sending servers are going to queue mail meant to go to those servers for a while so as long as the server comes back online again with 24 hours or so, you really shouldn't lose any email whatsoever during the period that your server was offline.

With that said though, it is fairly simple to manually setup exim to DNS only servers (which I use for a lot of different "extra" purposes) such as email, vpn, or backup mysql servers.

Native support by Cpanel for email might be a nice feature but then the DNS only product might not be a "FREE" product anymore and if you start adding a bunch of features to DNS Only then you may as well just go ahead and install the full Cpanel on the server instead.

I would propose instead perhaps creating 2 entirely new products ....

Email Only

MySQL Only (perhaps with Galera / Replication)

These would allow more for special purpose applications and give administrators a lot more flexibility when designing their Cpanel networks

[sneader]

I will offer another angle to having a Backup MX server.

1) As Spiral just mentioned... without a secondary/backup mail server, the sending server will simply keep trying, usually for 2 to 5 days! Unless your mail server is down for a long time (greater than a couple days), having a backup mail server isn't really necessary.

2) More important: If your mail server is temporarily down, the sending server will send a "delayed delivery" message to the person that sent the message, letting them know that the message hasn't been delivered yet, and that the server will keep trying for xx days. THIS IS HUGE -- it lets the sender know that the recipient hasn't yet received the message! Perhaps, then, they will call them or send a FAX or something. On the other hand, if you have a backup server, it accepts the message, with no warning to the sender. THE SENDER THINKS THE MESSAGE WAS DELIVERED -- BUT IT WASN'T!! The sender could think the recipient is ignoring them or who knows what.

I've been doing this a long time, and have never had situation where I wished I had a backup mail server. YMMV.

Now, having a SEPARATE mail server (as well as SEPARATE MYSQL) -- Now we are talking! Bring it on!

- Scott

[cPanelDon]

Any update on this?

When new information is available it will be posted here; however, this request is still very new considering it is only one month old, and more time must be allowed to ensure additional feedback can be posted.

To strengthen the chances of further consideration I recommend offering to this thread a greater contribution, more than requesting a status update, specifically, contributing to the feature request thread by sharing your unique thoughts and suggestions detailing how and why the feature should, or should not, be implemented, including any applicable preferences that you may have, or letting us know if you may be for, in support of, or against, in opposition to, having the feature implemented and detailing why, such as what others have done. Thank you for your understanding.