So, reading the doc, which I am hoping is wrong (surely not!), it would appear the backup server needs Virtualmin (even GPL) AND Webmin. But, reading how this works, it would not seem Virtualmin should be necessary??
All the primary has to do sees to be what is documented, which would require nothing to do with Virtualmin.
I would think all it does is log into remote box, and, add an entry to the list of domains to accept mail for (but not deliver). What else might it do that would require Virtualmin?
Am hoping it is more like the DNS secondary which only requires Webmin on the secondary???
But, reading how this works, it would not seem Virtualmin should be necessary??
It obviously doesn’t need to be the full stack, but the module might need to be installed. I’ve never actually checked (it always Just Worked for me, so I never dug very deep into how or why). Just another module in Webmin isn’t all that dramatic–yes, installing the full stack with install.sh is dramatic, but you don’t need that much Virtualmin for this purpose, if you know what I mean?
You could try it with just Webmin and see what happens. If it fails, then you’ll probably know. (And we could update the docs to reflect that.)
Yep, even trying to enable the secondary mail server yields an error that it does not have Virtualmin installed.
Yuck, I didn’t want to install Virtualmin GPL on my own, and, I cetainly didn’t want to purchase a license for zero domains! I wonder if Virtualmin runs on Mac OSX… Will have to check, Webmin sure does.
Yuck, I didn't want to install Virtualmin GPL on my own
As I mentioned, you just need the module, and a working mail server–installing a Webmin module is a one-step process. Really simple.
I cetainly didn't want to purchase a license for zero domains!
You wouldn’t need to, if this is your only “backup” server. A second installation on another server is permitted, for backup purposes. Any domains you do have must match those on the primary…but zero domains works fine.
I wonder if Virtualmin runs on Mac OSX.
Yep, but we don’t have installer support for it. It’s even less popular than FreeBSD amongst our user base, and FreeBSD only got support because a couple of our FreeBSD users have been particularly helpful in the forums, so I felt obliged to return the favor.
But, since you don’t need the full stack…just a working mail server, Webmin, and the Virtualmin virtual-server module…it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to set it up manually on pretty much any UNIX-like OS. (But Virtualmin “knows” Mac OS X, so you won’t even have to do much configuration once installed, assuming you use the stock paths for stuff.)
Again, I want to be very clear: This is not the same as a full Virtualmin installation. You don’t need BIND, MySQL, PostgreSQL, various Perl and PHP bindings and packages, custom Apache, mod_fcgid, etc. etc. You can’t compare this type of Virtualmin installation to a full stack install.
Oh, you should also ask yourself, "Do I really need a forward and hold backup MX?" SMTP is a very reliable protocol, by default…if your mail server is down for some reason, the sending server will hold it for some period of time before bouncing, usually more than a day (but usually not more than a week).
I’ve never bothered with a backup MX, and I’ve maintained a lot of mail servers over the years. I just let the protocol handle failure situations as it was designed to do. We only covered the backup MX stuff because people asked us to and because the feature exists…not because we think it’s particularly necessary or useful for the vast majority of deployments.
Actually, the Mac OSX install was very simple , I just used Virtualmin GPL, did not worry about missing dependencies as I would handle that if I needed any which I doubted. After install, it almost worked as is, it just warned me about a missing postfix setting (and I was not going to even use postfix, I use qmail for 10 years now). So, it took maybe 10 minutes and the backup email (qmail) was updated from main server (postfix) perfectly. Already had webmin on the Mac.
Same Mac also backs up DNS just fine. Pretty nice.
Oh, you should also ask yourself, "Do I really need a forward and hold backup MX?" SMTP is a very reliable protocol, by default...if your mail server is down for some reason, the sending server will hold it for some period of time before bouncing, usually more than a day (but usually not more than a week).
Having successfully administered email systems for over 10 years, this is not my experience at all. I found some mailservers waiting only hours of time (bad), possibly only 1 hour by one major provider. If you run a business site and lose an order or other key email because of that, not good.
So, the question is what are the odds of an hour or two downtime? Who knows, hopefully, almost 0. But, strange things happen on the internet, fiber lines are cut, DOS attacks, networks go down, etc. So, for me, very much worth it and I am very glad you all added that feature. Though, adding the one line to one file on the remote qmail system would have been pretty easy to script as well. SInce it’s so easy to have a backup server, already have any number of them at our company, why not.
