Does anyone have some links to documentation on redundant POP3 connections? I am not talking MX records. I am looking for documentation on how to make a pop3 or similiar service redundant. I have found some things on ARP and TCP/Ip switches, but nothing that hits the nail on the head.

What are you interested in making redundant? Data storage? Multiple pop3 servers?

I am wanting to be able to have a "switch" or a transparent switchover for services such as pop3, telnet, etc. We currently do this with clustering software, but that gets expensive when you go to add new servers.
For example, say you have a mail server pop3.foo.com. You want to provide redundancy on a different box(pop3backup.foo.com), maybe even a different box on a different network. Say pop3.foo.com goes down, you want to be able to switchover to pop3backup.foo.com without a hassle. DNS would already have pop3backup as the secondary mx for a domain.
How can you make the pop3 service redundant without clustering software? Sure you could change where pop3.foo.com points in DNS but that would take time to propagate. Customers would already have pop3.foo.com in their e-mail clients so you can't ask them all to change their settings.
Make sense?

I believe you can do it without shelling out for clustering software...

I would search google.com for "load balance pop3"

If I find anymore info I'll post it here and maybe write a how-to and post it on my site for anybody that wants to do it in the future.

I would be interested to know how you would keep all the servers data in sync seen as it wuld be changing on a minute by minute basis.

Can you keep us informed as to what you find?

Cheers,
Steve

You could do it with network storage, but the issue comes with pop really.

users use pop3.foo.com to check their mail, say via outlook.. if that server dies, they wont goto the new one automatically..

the only true solution for this is load balancing with a 3rd ip to act as the decider.

the other problem is that if 2 people check the same account on 2 servers, now your talking about some locking issues.

go with cyrus imap aggregrator!

http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/ag.html

ps. send me a beer now :)