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Clustering questions
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Good day,
We got a new server to replace our old one, but then we had the idea of setting up clustering.
I have a few questions after reading the documentation:
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I know that each server will need its own MDaemon key. Does this include the Antivirus, ActiveSync, and other licenses as well? In other words, do we need to purchase each license twice?
- If we have 500 users and want to split 250 and 250, do we need to buy two 500 users license or two 250 users license?
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What does it mean that we need third-party software to cluster webmail and remote administration?
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Are there any bugs or issues we should be aware of?
Thank you!
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Arron Staff
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I know that each server will need its own MDaemon key. Does this include the Antivirus, ActiveSync, and other licenses as well? In other words, do we need to purchase each license twice?
Yes
- If we have 500 users and want to split 250 and 250, do we need to buy two 500 users license or two 250 users license?
You need to have two 500 users licenses. Each server will have all 500 users configured and each user will be able to connect to either server to retrieve and send email.
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What does it mean that we need third-party software to cluster webmail and remote administration?
Can you provide more context, where did you find this information. I'm not sure exactly what you are talking about, but I'll here is some general information that I think will help.
MDaemon will not make the decision about where to route traffic. You will need a load balancer to handle the decision on which server the traffic should be routed to. When someone logs in to Webmail on a specific server, all traffic for that session must be routed to that same server. If you are using the chat feature in MDaemon, all XMPP traffic needs to be routed to the same server. If you are using the chat functionality inside webmail, then all XMPP and Webmail traffic needs to be routed to the same server. All Remote Administration traffic needs to be routed to the primary server.
Even if you are not using protocols mentioned above, you still need a load balancer to route mail traffic to each server in the cluster and detect when a server is offline.
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Thank you @Arron
Can we use something like HAproxy as a load balancer? Or do you have any recommendation?
I will talk with my team about this and see how complex could be.
Also, is there any discounts for buying two licenses? 😅
Regards,
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Arron Staff
We do not have reccomendations for which load balancer to use. Any load balancer that supports maintaining an entire session on the same server should be able to do what you need it to.
You would need to ask our customer service team about a discount.
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Hi Arron,
I have another question.
For the cluster, is it mandatory to have the mailboxes on a network-shared location? I know that doing it this way provides redundancy, but what if, for now, we decide to keep them on one of the servers?
Does MDaemon get affected in any way by running it under a user other than the SYSTEM user (Windows Service)?
Thank you!
Abel Herrera
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Arron Staff
For the cluster, is it mandatory to have the mailboxes on a network-shared location? I know that doing it this way provides redundancy, but what if, for now, we decide to keep them on one of the servers?
Technically the mailboxes can be left on a server and just share out the directory structure of that server. It does create a single point of failure, but I have configured it like this in the past and it does work. If you share out the mailboxes as \\mdaemon.mydomain.int\Users\, then both servers will access the mailboxes using this path.
Does MDaemon get affected in any way by running it under a user other than the SYSTEM user (Windows Service)?
Yes, everything MDaemon tries to do will be done as the user that the service runs as. So you must make sure that the user account that the service is running as has access to everything MDaemon needs. You should make the user an Administrator on the MDaemon machines. You can have the service running as a local user on the machine, but you need to create the exact same local user on both MDaemon servers using the exact same password. If MDaemon needs to access network resources, then you'll want to have the service running as a Network user.
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Thank you Arron,
Just one last question (I hope). When running in a cluster, can we still change the mail folder path under Mail Folder & Groups?
Let’s say I need to store a few mailboxes on different hardware instead of using the default path for all mailboxes. Is that possible?
Thank you!
Abel
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Arron Staff
Let’s say I need to store a few mailboxes on different hardware instead of using the default path for all mailboxes. Is that possible?
Yes, the path just needs to be accessible by every MDaemon server in the cluster.
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Hi Arron,
We are facing an issue. We want to store some mailboxes on a network share, but it is not working.
The network location is on a Windows Server 2022 machine. MDaemon and the other server are not part of a domain but are in the same workgroup. Both have the same account, same password, and admin rights.
I can copy files to the network share without any issues using Windows Explorer.
MDaemon is configured to run under the user account that has permission to access the shared location. However, when a mailbox is located there, MDaemon shows the following error:
"Input or destination file could not be accessed or copied."At this point, I’m not sure what else to try. Is there something specific that needs to be done to make this work?
This is stopping us on getting the second license for the cluster.
Thank you!
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Arron Staff
I can copy files to the network share without any issues using Windows Explorer.
What user are you logged in as when you are testing the network share? You should be logged in as the same user that MDaemon is running as.
Can you also edit the files once they are on the share?
Can you delete files from the share?
Try granting everyone full control of the share, then reboot all servers involved. Is MDaemon able to use the share then?
A better way to set this up is to make all the machines members of a domain, configure a domain account that has access to the shares and then have MDaemon run as the domain account. When you are creating local accounts on the machine, its not actually the same account, its a different account on each server that just happens to have the same username and password.
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Both are logged on as Administrator accounts.
Mdaemon server can edit, delete and create files and folders.
I tried the everyone and it works with windows explorer but no under MDaemon app.
I guess we will need to join them to the domain. We haven't tried that yet because MDaemon is on a different network segment.
Thank you!
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Arron Staff
Can you post a log snippet that shows the error occurring? How do you have the Shared network paths for MDaemon configured?
Are you using a UNC path or a mapped network drive?
What does the log show MDaemon is trying to do when the error occurs?
If you install process monitor and watch the mdaemon.exe process, what does it show is happening when the error occurs?
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Both servers are logged under Administrator account, but for the network share is an MDaemon user with administrator permissions.
Because they are not under a domain, they are under the same workgroup.
I am using mapped network drive, but I tried adding the UNC path under mail folder & Groups too.
I am checking the process monitor and under process tree there are two Mdaemon instances and one is running under the user with the shared access and the other with the administrator account. The administrator is showing Command: "C:\MDaemon\App\MDaemon.exe" /configsession
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Arron Staff
Mapped network drives won't for a service. The drives are not mapped until the user logs in. You must use a UNC path.
The administrator is showing Command: "C:\MDaemon\App\MDaemon.exe" /configsession
This is the UI that you have open. You can either close the UI, to make it easier to see what the server is doing, or just ignore the traffic from it.
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Thank you Arron,
I tried again using the UNC path, and it worked.
We are going to continue with this project. We will probably have more questions as it progresses.
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Arron Staff
Great, thank you for letting us know you were able to get it working! And we will be happy to help with any other questions you have.
