==== REQUIRED BASIC INFO OF YOUR IREDMAIL SERVER ====
- iRedMail version (check /etc/iredmail-release): 0.9.9 MySQL edition
- Deployed with iRedMail Easy or the downloadable installer? downloadable
- Linux/BSD distribution name and version: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
- Store mail accounts in which backend (LDAP/MySQL/PGSQL): MySQL
- Web server (Apache or Nginx):Nginx
- Manage mail accounts with iRedAdmin-Pro? iRedAdmin
- [IMPORTANT] Related original log or error message is required if you're experiencing an issue.
====

I know it's possible to set up an external MySQL compatible database and configure Postfix and Dovecot to use it, but are there other services that also use a database, and can these use an external database with iRedMail? I'm reading Kyle Dent's "Postfix" book, as well as Heinlein's "Dovecot" book, so these specify how to do this. The "Details of this iRedMail installation" message I got from iRedMail after setup also specifies that iRedAPD uses MySQL locally. What about other services like ClamAV, SpamAssasin - do they use locl DB service and, if so, can they also be configured to use an external DB source?

I have iRedMail running on an AWS EC2 instance as a member of a target group that a load balancer sends incoming messages to (and so far haven't run into SMTP sending issues). My ultimate goal is to see if I can create a CloudFormation template that will spin up an Ubuntu EC2 instance, download and install iRedMail, then stop services and replace all applicable configuration files such that the various services use an external RDS Aurora database for user authentication, confiration, etc. Then I can have health checks and if something goes wrong on the EC2 instance, it can be terminated and a new one spun up that uses the external DB, so that all configuration and user accounts survive, Ultimately, it would also be great if the message store can somehow survive, perhaps by using a volume that is configured to survive the EC2 instance termination and that can be mounted on the new instance.

I would appreciate any thoughts on this project.