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How to install MailEssentials in a cluster environment

Author: Luis Fernandes

Answer

Applies to:

  • GFI MailEssentials 2010 and earlier versions


GFI MailEssentials can be installed in a cluster environment. However, only active - passive clusters are supported.

Installing GFI MailEssentials on an Active-Passive Exchange cluster:

To proceed with this solution, Microsoft Exchange Server 2000/2003 needs to be installed in clustered mode. An Exchange Virtual Server cluster group resource should also exist and should include, among other things, a Physical Disk cluster resource

  1. On the active node of the cluster, install GFI MailEssentials to the shared hard drive
  2. Open the Microsoft Cluster Administrator console (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Cluster Administrator)
  3. Stop the GFI MailEssentials Legacy Attendant and the GFI POP2Exchange cluster resources and move the Exchange Virtual Server cluster group resource to the other node
  4. Install GFI MailEssentials on the second node of the cluster to the same directory in the shared hard drive
  5. Add the GFI List Server Service, GFI MailEssentials Enterprise Transfer Service and the GFI MailEssentials Managed Attendant Service to the Exchange Virtual Server cluster resource group as per the GFI Knowledge Base article How to add services to Exchange Virtual Server Cluster Resource Group

Installing GFI MailEssentials on an Active-Passive IIS cluster

To proceed with this solution a cluster group resource needs to exist and it should include, among others, a Generic Service cluster resource for the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service and a Physical Disk cluster resource. This cluster group resource will be referred to as the IIS cluster group resource.

  1. On the active node of the cluster, install GFI MailEssentials to the shared hard drive
  2. Open the Microsoft Cluster Administrator console (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Cluster Administrator)
  3. Install GFI MailEssentials on the second node of the cluster to the same directory in the shared hard drive
  4. The following GFI MailEssentials services need to be added to the IIS cluster group resource as per the GFI Knowledge Base article How to add services to the IIS cluster resource group
    • GFI MailEssentials Legacy Attendant Service
    • GFI MailEssentials Managed Attendant Service
    • GFI MailEssentials List Server Service
    • GFI POP2Exchange Service
    • GFI MailEssentials Enterprise Transfer Service

NOTE:

  • The GFI MailEssentials installation will detect the Cluster environment and will NOT restart the IIS services during installation, since that may be detected as a failover by the Cluster. Therefore the services will have to be restarted manually on completion of installation for GFI MailEssentials to start functioning
  • When GFI MailEssentials is installed on an Active-Passive cluster, the configuration and anti-spam data is automatically shared by the nodes in the cluster, since the product is installed on a shared drive. It is therefore not necessary to configure the Anti-spam Synchronization Agent to synchronize data between the nodes in the cluster. The Anti-spam Synchronization Agent is only required should it be necessary to synchronize data with another server outside the cluster, or with another cluster
  • If the Anti-spam Synchronization Agent master server is set up on the cluster, make sure that the virtual directory from which data is distributed to slave servers physically resides on the shared drive which forms part of the IIS cluster group resource
  • If Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 is not installed on a Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 cluster installation, Internet Information Services Web sites that are hosted on the cluster will not start automatically when an Exchange Server 2003 virtual server fails over to a cluster node. More information about this issue can be found in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 885440.