smtp/pop cluster design

Simple system design here, up to 5 front end smtp servers running exim which may forward mail on to other external addresses or may want to store mail in a local users pop account.

We're also working towards up to 5 back end pop/imap servers. Storage of users mail files will be from an NFS server.

Question is about getting the mail from the smtp servers and onto the nfs server in the correct users home dirs.

Do we
a) mount the nfs server from each smtp server. Seems sensible but we're going to end up with 10 servers all mounting nfs server.

b) set up an internal smtp server on the pop servers. ie smtp server forwards to user.name@popsvr1 which can then store it in /home/user.name. Seems to make the system more modular and less prone to failure but at the expense of a little more effort on each server.

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

 

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