Cyrus replication and file system problem

[Bron Gondwana]

On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 23:10:55 -0700, "Rich Wales" <richw at richw.org> said:
> I'm running Cyrus 2.3.9 on a small server (less than 10 accounts).  I'm
> thinking of using replication to put a second copy of the mail store on
> a remote server.
> 
> The twist is that I'm planning to configure the remote replica to put
> its Cyrus spool in a file system that is encrypted (using "truecrypt").
> Since the spool directory will need to be mounted by hand (with a pass
> phrase typed in manually by me), I need to deal with the possibility
> that Cyrus might be running but the spool directory is missing (e.g.,
> if the server has just rebooted and I haven't had a chance to log in
> and mount the encrypted file system yet).
> 
> My question is, will Cyrus's replication work properly in an environment
> like this?  Obviously, nothing can get stored on the replica server if
> the spool directory is down, but if the master tries (unsuccessfully) to
> synchronize new messages while the replica's spool directory is offline,
> will everything eventually end up clean after the file system has been
> mounted on the replica?  Or is there a danger of activity on the master
> being lost?
> 
> As best I can tell, this is NOT the same as a situation in which the
> replica server is completely down.  In my scenario, the replica server
> will be running, and the Cyrus application will be running, but the
> spool directory will be missing.
> 
> Is there anything in particular (configuration options, messy kludges,
> etc.) that I need to do in a setup like this in order for replication
> to work?

Yeah, don't start the replica automatically - start cyrus in the script
that mounts the filesystem.

(you don't _have_ to have start cyrus on boot)

Also, see my post the other day and various in the archives about the 
need to monitor synchronisation and restart sync_client after replica
restarts.  There's no polite shutdown mode.

Bron.
-- 
  Bron Gondwana
  brong at fastmail.fm