Re: [cobalt-users] RaQ2/3: All email on one server

[Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

BlackSun wrote:

> What's the best way to configure all of my virtual sites (spread
> out over several RaQ2s, RaQ3s and RaQ3is) so that the email can
> be handled by a single server (preferably a spare RaQ2)?

RaQ2s make excellent mail-servers, with only one caveat I've found...

Since they don't allow sorting by the various columns, and don't have a
search option, once you get more than a few email addresses in a domain,
finding them becomes a bit of a problem.  You can, of course, use the
browser's "find in frame" facility, to alleviate this problem.  The RaQ3
isn't suitable until the problem with virtusertable is finally fixed.  I
have extremely good reason to believe that'll happen quite soon, for
those of you attempting this with a RaQ3.

> Do I simply change the MX records on my primary DNS server to
> read from:
> 
>   clientdomain.com
>   mail.clientdomain.com
> 
> to:
> 
>   clientdomain.com
>   mail.server.com     -or-
> 
>   clientdomain.com
>   mail.mydomain.com
>    (with an A record pointing mail.mydomain.com to either
>    the server or mail.mydomain.com)

Though you can do it either way, we usually set up an A record for
"pop.domain.com" on our name-server, pointing at any shared IP# on the
mail-server system.

Then, on the same name-server, we set up an MX record pointing
domain.com to pop.domain.com.

I understand that this isn't conventional naming, because in fact the
mail is transported at this point via smtp rather than pop, but in fact,
the names mean nothing to the transport protocols, and we do it this way
so our clients (hopefully) will realize we're only offering an inbound
mail-server, not an outgoing one.

We tell our clients they can read their incoming mail for domain by
pointing their MUAs (mail clients) to "pop.domain.com".

When doing it this way I also set up a domain on the mail-server as
"pop.domain.com", and set up the users under this domain.

I would NOT leave the default RaQ temporary page at "pop.domain.com"
since inevitably someone will look at it.  I'd either put in a redirect
to the "real" website at "www.domain.com", or I'd put in a simple
index.html file to create a phony error message, telling the user
there's no such website (which in fact there isn't), or I'd put in a
simple index.html file to create a blank page.

> Thanks for any assistance.

I hope this helps.

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
nobaloney.net
P. O. Box 52672
Riverside, CA  92517
voice: (909) 787-8589  *  fax: (909) 782-0205