[TriLUG] home mail servers (was Re: OT: flame on)

[Chris Merrill]

Lisa Lorenzin wrote:
> in pursuit of reliability - one thing i'd suggest, from experience, is
> that you find someone (or several someones) to do secondary MX for you.
> service interruptions happen; they're a lot less frustrating when you at 

Is the purpose here:
1. To ensure quick mail delivery by having an alternate POP/IMAP
    server to point your mail client at?
-OR-
2. To ensure mail does not get bounced if the server is temporarily
    unavailable (maintenance, network outage, etc.)

The reason I ask is that I'm under the impression that most MTAs
will retry message delivery many times before bouncing a message.
For example, our office mail server (outsourced) will attempt mail
delivery for 5 days if it cannot contact a server.

Also, I'm running my own mailserver at home -- which is occasionally
down for a few hours or even a day at a time.  Nobody on my mailing
lists have ever complained about mail to the lists getting bounced...
am I just lucky?

Or am I missing a key point in this discussion?

*********************************
Chris Merrill
cmerrill at nc.rr.com
*********************************