Topic: Multiple Mail Servers

[FNC]

Hi

I have 3 offices that all want to use the same domain for mail.
My problem is if i setup 3 servers with the same domain all mail for that domain would either go to the server configured in the MX record or the mail would be delivered locally.

How can I configure the servers to first try and delver mail locally, and if the user does not exist, forward the mail to the server specified in MX for the domain.

I undersand that I have to use a smarthost, but not sure how to do that.

Regards

[mheymann]

One way you should be able to do this (which may not be the best way) would be to 
setup each server with a different domain and is the primary mail server.
All users are setup on the main server and the server at the other locations only use
their servers for outgoing mail, configuration somewhat as follows.

Location A
Mail Server Domain       = mail.mydomain.com
Incomming Mail Server  = mail.mydomain.com
Outgoing   Mail Server  = mail.mydomain.com

Location B
Mail Server Domain       = mail.mydomain.net
Incomming Mail Server  = mail.mydomain.com
Outgoing   Mail Server  = mail.mydomain.net

Location C
Mail Server Domain       = mail.mydomain.us
Incomming Mail Server  = mail.mydomain.com
Outgoing   Mail Server  = mail.mydomain.us

At my company we only have one SME server and have several users at
remote locations and their E-Mail clients are configured in this manner.
Their mail is delivered to them remotely from the SME server and their mail
is sent via their local mail server.

[engdev]

Another possibility (again maybe not the best) is to have your domain hosted by your ISP, or by Google as we do. I don't see why this wouldn't work for you with multiple sites.

The following posts may help:

http://forums.contribs.org/index.php/topic,43297.msg205915.html#msg205915
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php/topic,43087.msg204952.html#msg204952

If you've got any more questions re. setting up Google&SME to work together, please ask.

regards
John

[Knuddi]

I have successfully used the first option with 4 locations. The primary domain (.com) has the MX record associated and was i HQ. The remote locations had different domains (in my case .us, .ru and .com.br) and had local users registered. The HQ had all users and individual forwards to all remote users configured via server-manager. For me important was that the .us, .ru and .com.br domains also pointed from MX perspective to HQ so I was sure nothing went out without HQ and spam/virus check. I had VPN tunnel from HQ to each branch office and changed forwarding rules (/var/qmail/control/smtproutes) so that they knew where to route SMTP traffic.

The result was that remote users could email "internally" with their local domain suffix if internet was down (often seen in Brazil and Russia) and otherwise use corporate suffix (.com). The disadvantage was that all internal emails were routed via HQ.

[FNC]

Thank you all for your replies.
I will look into your solutions.