What do people use for backup MX? Synchronising spam filter state seems annoying and I don’t want the backup MX to be a way past the spam filter. A lot of spammers are now apparently starting with the lower-priority MXs on the assumption that they don’t do as much spam filtering.
I self host and had an issue a while ago where the incoming server died and I needed to update my DNS, but my DNS provider required sending me an email to log in. I’d like to have a backup MX to support that without so much suffering (even if I need to cat the mail spool). Ideally, I’d like the backup MX to monitor the health of the primary and not accept mail when it is working but comes online and catches incoming email when it fails.
When I was still self-hosting I had a handshake agreement with a friend who was another self-hoster. But obviously that assumes they’re as into it as you are (he wasn’t after a few years).
It’s more the software stack and failover I care about. I already have another small VPS with a different provider (my incoming server can’t do outbound SMTP, so I have a cheap one that can) that could be the backup MX.
The boring answer for me is that I don’t have a backup MX, and my accounts on the DNS service I use and the registrars all point to a gmail address. Same with SSO for Tailscale.
Setting up something redundant and failsafe is really annoying.
What do people use for backup MX? Synchronising spam filter state seems annoying and I don’t want the backup MX to be a way past the spam filter. A lot of spammers are now apparently starting with the lower-priority MXs on the assumption that they don’t do as much spam filtering.
I self host and had an issue a while ago where the incoming server died and I needed to update my DNS, but my DNS provider required sending me an email to log in. I’d like to have a backup MX to support that without so much suffering (even if I need to cat the mail spool). Ideally, I’d like the backup MX to monitor the health of the primary and not accept mail when it is working but comes online and catches incoming email when it fails.
score 1 · canonical
When I was still self-hosting I had a handshake agreement with a friend who was another self-hoster. But obviously that assumes they’re as into it as you are (he wasn’t after a few years).
score 1 · canonical
It’s more the software stack and failover I care about. I already have another small VPS with a different provider (my incoming server can’t do outbound SMTP, so I have a cheap one that can) that could be the backup MX.
score 1 · canonical
The boring answer for me is that I don’t have a backup MX, and my accounts on the DNS service I use and the registrars all point to a gmail address. Same with SSO for Tailscale.
Setting up something redundant and failsafe is really annoying.
score 1 · canonical