mail server load balancing

kanwar_rajan · 09-23-2004, 06:43 AM

i have a query regarding mail server load balancing

i found that yahoo.com has 3 smtp servers handling the email traffic.

this means that any of the 3 servers can handle the mail for a single user say
xx@yahoo.com

now when that user logs in through yahoo mail ( IMAP )
how is all the mail retrieved from all the 3 servers simulataneously
i mean to say some of the mail will be in server1, some in the second server and so on

is there some technique in linux to achieve this

please help

rajan

manvirr · 09-24-2004, 05:23 AM

yahoo's SMTP server are just a global interface. They just accept the mail. This mail is then forwarded internally to the system that hosts the yahoo mail users account. So when the user logs in to check mail the mail is actually not fetched from the three servers but from the users account on a single system. (Though this system may be redundant to keep up the service levels)

Cheers

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