Backup MX service

Sone · 27 Feb 2009 at 14:36

Does everyone here use one?

ISP ballsed up MX record update and knocked ours off the bottom. Just wondering if people still use them in the world of ultra reliable connections and servers?

(we still have multiple MX records for different sites and servers but incase of failure but we had a decicated third party at the end who just reattempted mail delivery to us)

Sp00n · 27 Feb 2009 at 16:18

We run 2 relays for our mx records, you should ALWAYS have failover.

Pho · 27 Feb 2009 at 17:58

People have reliable connections? Our primary MX server is here at our office sitting on a 1Mb connection. It quite regularly fails (bad weather probably) or just seems to give up when a lot of emails are incoming. The backup MX on our webserver (100Mb) quite often gets used

.

dave-lew99 · 27 Feb 2009 at 19:28

The problem with MX records is that not all SMTP servers obey the correct rules/priorities. I often get genuine mail through a secondary server at the same time as the primary server when there's been no issue with downtime etc.

It's generally a good idea though. The one at the office has a back up with our ISP should our connection go down, or i'm fiddling with the server.

At home, currently there's only the one with my webhost, but usually i'd have the webhost plus my own server listed as MX handlers.

Skidilliplop · 6 Mar 2009 at 23:11

We Don't use backup MX, but then we have a LES10 to Star so it never goes down. If we were running a DSL service of any kind then i would certainly recommend it as they usually don't come with uptime guarantees.

#Chri5# · 7 Mar 2009 at 11:56

It's a brave person in the business world who doesn't have backup MX IMHO, even with dedicated connnectivity.

A JCB doesn't care what sort of cable it just put it's bucket through...

cybergeek · 10 Mar 2009 at 11:47

Yep we have our own backup at a different data centre.

Phal · 10 Mar 2009 at 13:48

#Chri5# said:
It's a brave person in the business world who doesn't have backup MX IMHO, even with dedicated connnectivity.

A JCB doesn't care what sort of cable it just put it's bucket through...

Assume you mean a different server rather than just a different MX record pointing to a different connection?

Like you said, the JCB doesnt care! Itll quite happily dig through all the phone cables outside your office and cut you off

regardless of your isp hehe

Thankfully it doesnt happen too often. ISP outages are more common than stupid users of large machinery.