on 10-16-2008 2:03 PM fabian dacunha spake the following: > Dear ALl, > > I have the following live setup . > Centos 5.1 running as a Mail and DNS server with the following software > > Sendmail ver > MailScanner ver > squirrel mail > clam av > spamassassin > mailwatch > > we have about 250 mail users all with no shell and every thing is working > perfectly fine > > now i wd like to know the following . > > 1) if i have a copy of my /etc/passwd file and the /etc/skel/shadow file > and if my current HDD crashes .. > now if i make a new centos server with all the above software and jus copy > the password n shadow file in the right directories will all the users > able to login into the system as before. > or is anything more required to be done. > To explain more clearly if my current hdd crashes i can get up a new > centos machine but creating all the 250 + users wd be a big problem > specially the passwords. It would also depend on how you backed up the system. In absence of a valid passwd file, the files only have UID and GID numbers to identify them. If you preserve this info in your backups, and also your passwd, shadow, group, and gshadow files, you could hobble something together. But there are many other things you need backed up. > > 2) i would like to also know about MX records > > i mean DNS server having MX with same priority n MX with different priority > > i right now have a primary n secondary mail server that is dns server with > different MX records and its workin fine > > if i have 2 servers with same MX priority do i need to create the same > users on both my centos servers so tht if one server fails othe one is > operational . i do presume the above is correct or is there any other way > You usually have your backup MX just hold the mail and forward it to the primary when it comes back up. To have a second server become operational if the first fails is not just about backups, it is about HA (high availability). There is more info on HA on the Linux HA website http://www.linux-ha.org/ > > apprecite your help > No worries! -- MailScanner is like deodorant... You hope everybody uses it, and you notice quickly if they don't!!!! -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20081016/a6deba1a/attachment-0004.sig>