1 Topic by carlsberg

  • carlsberg
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Topic: some info required prior to installing

i'm looking at installing the latest version of iredmail, just want some clarification on certain things.

on the website, it compares features, such as Per-user mail forwarding control, just to clarify, these differences are just for the admin panel? all these features are fully applicable and configurable from the command line even for the basic free install?

i will be using mysql 5.6 as a backend on a remote server.
i have phpmyadmin already installed on webservers, i will not install it on the mailserver.
similarly, i would install roundcube on the webservers, not the mailserver.

i assume that i can do this with iredadmin and awstats as well, or do they need to go on the mailserver?

mysql is running multi-master, load-balanced behind haproxy 1.5, 1 writeable master, 1 read-only master (becomes writeable on failure of other master) each master has it's own slave.
the webservers are also running load-balanced behind haproxy 1.5 (8 servers)


user mails will be stored using the maildir format, on a shared storage device ( DRBD replicated drives, connected to using iscsi, mounted on the mailservers at boot, and using the ocfs2 filesystem.

i have two servers available for running the mailservers. i assume having both servers accessing a single set of mail folders will not be a problem?

would there be any problems running two iredmail servers load-balanced behind haproxy 1.5 using the PROXY command?
i know i would need to install two instances of postfix on each server (postfixA live, postfixB down on server1, postfixA down, postfixB live on server2) so that the relevant postfix queues can be started running on the other server following any failures, effectively there would be 4 mailservers configured in haproxy, postfixA and postfixA backup, postfixB and postfixB backup.

are there any problems with running iredmail this way? anything else i would need to be aware of?

even if i can't run iredmail load-balanced, could i still run it behind haproxy 1.5 using the PROXY command?
our network architecture doesn't give us anywhere else to place them on the network.

thanks
lee.

----

Spider Email Archiver: On-Premises, lightweight email archiving software developed by iRedMail team. Supports Amazon S3 compatible storage and custom branding.

2 Reply by ZhangHuangbin

  • ZhangHuangbin
  • ZhangHuangbin
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Re: some info required prior to installing

carlsberg wrote:

on the website, it compares features, such as Per-user mail forwarding control, just to clarify, these differences are just for the admin panel? all these features are fully applicable and configurable from the command line even for the basic free install?

All features are configurable from the command line.

carlsberg wrote:

i assume that i can do this with iredadmin and awstats as well, or do they need to go on the mailserver?

If you don't need it, just don't choose it during iRedMail installation.

carlsberg wrote:

i have two servers available for running the mailservers. i assume having both servers accessing a single set of mail folders will not be a problem?

You better not do this.
Mailbox is not a simple folder on file system, for example, IMAP/POP3 server (Dovecot) will create and update index for mail messages, if two servers access the same mailbox at the same time, it may cause some messy.

carlsberg wrote:

would there be any problems running two iredmail servers load-balanced behind haproxy 1.5 using the PROXY command?
...
even if i can't run iredmail load-balanced, could i still run it behind haproxy 1.5 using the PROXY command?

I didn't try haproxy, no idea yet. But i think it should be ok, haproxy supports Postfix well.

Important note: iRedMail installation requires a FRESH/NEW server, don't install iRedMail on a server which already has Apache/MySQL/... installed and running.

3 Reply by carlsberg

  • carlsberg
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Re: some info required prior to installing

ZhangHuangbin wrote:
carlsberg wrote:

i assume that i can do this with iredadmin and awstats as well, or do they need to go on the mailserver?

If you don't need it, just don't choose it during iRedMail installation.

it's not a case of don't need it, if i wanted to use them do i need to install them on the same server as iRedmail or can i install them on a separate webserver?

i'm assuming that awstats doesn't care what server it runs on as long as it has access to the mailserver logs.

does iredadmin edit config files, or database entries? if it's config files i assume it has to go onto the same server, or have passwordless ssh access to the mailserver.

4 Reply by ZhangHuangbin

  • ZhangHuangbin
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Re: some info required prior to installing

carlsberg wrote:

if i wanted to use them do i need to install them on the same server as iRedmail or can i install them on a separate webserver?

It's ok to install them on a separate server.

carlsberg wrote:

does iredadmin edit config files, or database entries? if it's config files i assume it has to go onto the same server, or have passwordless ssh access to the mailserver.

iRedAdmin doesn't edit config files on your server, it just update database records.
You can install iRedAdmin on separate server, and you have to update iRedAdmin config file to use the correct SQL/LDAP server address and accounts so that it can manage data on SQL/LDAP server.

5 Reply by carlsberg

  • carlsberg
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Re: some info required prior to installing

ok, very helpful. just a couple of questions left.

i see i can install with a remote mysql by specifying the server details on the cli
using 

MYSQL_SERVER='192.168.1.100' MYSQL_ROOT_USER='admin_iredmail' MYSQL_GRANT_HOST='192.168.1.200' bash iRedMail.sh

can i specify multiple mysql servers and use read/write splitting?


ZhangHuangbin wrote:
carlsberg wrote:

i have two servers available for running the mailservers. i assume having both servers accessing a single set of mail folders will not be a problem?

You better not do this.
Mailbox is not a simple folder on file system, for example, IMAP/POP3 server (Dovecot) will create and update index for mail messages, if two servers access the same mailbox at the same time, it may cause some messy.

what about if i get a single server working, and then clone that so i have a second identical server, using the same single set of mailbox folders. so i just change the ip and hostname of this 2nd server, and then set that up in haproxy as a backup of the 1st server.  all the services would be running, but no connections would be made to the 2nd server while the 1st server is working. would that be ok, or would it still have issues?

thanks
lee.

6 Reply by ZhangHuangbin

  • ZhangHuangbin
  • ZhangHuangbin
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Re: some info required prior to installing

carlsberg wrote:

can i specify multiple mysql servers and use read/write splitting?

No. iRedMail installer doesn't support this.

carlsberg wrote:

what about if i get a single server working, and then clone that so i have a second identical server, using the same single set of mailbox folders. so i just change the ip and hostname of this 2nd server, and then set that up in haproxy as a backup of the 1st server.  all the services would be running, but no connections would be made to the 2nd server while the 1st server is working. would that be ok, or would it still have issues?

Should be fine.