Backup Mail Server Questions

[Bart Silverstrim]

On Sep 27, 2004, at 3:14 PM, Doug Hardie wrote:

>
> On Sep 27, 2004, at 11:39, Nico Meijer wrote:
>
>> Regular folks don't understand how mail works. They have no clue
>> whatsoever. They don't _want_ to have a clue either. They are just
>> behaving like consumers, again. Do you *really* want to know what's 
>> on your plate at dinner? ;-) I do, maybe you too, but most people 
>> don't.
>>
>> If I had a dime for every time I have had to discuss how mail delivery
>> actually works to Joe Average or his Windows NT/2000 systems
>> administrator... boy.
>>
>>> Again, I have many _very_ strong opinions on how email should be
>>> managed, this is one of them.
>>
>> I happen to have a very strong opinion on the grim state of humanity
>> in general and regular, everyday, Joe Average computer users in 
>> particular. I am therefore strongly biased. ;-)
>
> When Joe Average computer user sends an order to Jane Trader to sell 
> his stock in xxx because its the highest its ever been and that email 
> sits in your secondary MX until after xxx falls to penny stock status, 
> then Joe Average computer user will have plenty of world class lawyers 
> on his doorstep with big dollar signs in their eyes.  They will have 
> no problem convincing Joe Sub-Average juror (of which there will be 
> more than enough to go around) that you were the cause of Joe Average 
> computer users' loss of his entire retirement savings.  After all, you 
> accepted the email and acknowledged it and failed to deliver it to 
> Jane in a timely fashion.  Any technical arguments you make about the 
> server down etc., will not faze the judge (who couldn't care less - he 
> gets paid the same no matter who wins) or Joe Sub-Average juror who is 
> only interested in who is putting on the better entertainment (you or 
> the soap opera he is missing at home).

Joe Average was stupid to have only one way of verifying that this 
transaction took place...and failed...lacking verification, there 
should ALWAYS be a backup way to do a transaction involving large sums 
of cash to verify that transactions go through when the primary means 
of communication (like your email server) becomes unavailable.  If you 
don't, that's your fault.  Crap happens to any ISP and at some point 
your primary means of internet usage WILL go down.

Not the system admin's problem as long as the system admin wasn't 
knowingly negligent.

My domain was just changed over.  While my domain changed 
appropriately, my reverse DNS still isn't set right (the company that 
controls the IP block is about as responsive as a pack of slugs).  My 
postings to the freebsd question list have not been appearing, despite 
the fact that the changes seem to be working since late Saturday 
(except the afore-mentioned reverse dns lookups).  I can't really look 
into "fixing" this more until I know that the reversals are working 
properly to see if there's something else causing it.  I have gotten no 
bounces from the mail servers, no bounces from the list, NOTHING...my 
three or so postings have simply disappeared.  Can I sue someone?  I 
may have had a big issue on my servers to see help on before we lose 
lots of money... :-) (yes, I'm really having this problem right now, 
and I don't know how to get it fixed at the moment, even though I'm 
hoping it is just a reverse-DNS lookup issue and once the slugs get off 
their butts I'll start getting my posts back to the list again :-(

-Bart