Separate services across two physical servers?

[mevans]

Hello all,

Is it possible to seperate DNS, SQL and Mail onto another physical server but still have Plesk manage it?

We have a server that we JUST want to perform Web duties, backup DNS and backup MX. We want to use our other server as a MS SQL, MySQL, MailEnable and Microsoft DNS server for our clients.

Is this possible with Plesk 7.5 for Windows?

 

[JackL]

Originally posted by mevans
Hello all,

Is it possible to seperate DNS, SQL and Mail onto another physical server but still have Plesk manage it?

We have a server that we JUST want to perform Web duties, backup DNS and backup MX. We want to use our other server as a MS SQL, MySQL, MailEnable and Microsoft DNS server for our clients.

Is this possible with Plesk 7.5 for Windows?

1. Only SQL server can be installed on another server.
2. You can use DNS on another server only if Active Directory installed (Of corse Plesk server is not a DC ) , and you use Active Directory integrated zones. In this situation however you need MS DNS installed on Plesk server. And replicate to all DNS servers in Active Directory enabled in DNS server properties.
3. You can use Mail forwarder on another server (Like Symantec Antivirus for gateways, or GFI software). It seems outside like mail server. All mails will be forwarded then to Plesk Mail server

John S.G.

 

[JonRohan]

Re: Re: Separate services across two physical servers?

Originally posted by JackL

2. You can use DNS on another server only if Active Directory installed (Of corse Plesk server is not a DC ) , and you use Active Directory integrated zones. In this situation however you need MS DNS installed on Plesk server. And replicate to all DNS servers in Active Directory enabled in DNS
server properties.

Im pretty sure you don't have to have AD installed to use the DNS functionality.

 

[Gris@]

It is not needed to use AD for DNS. But you'll need to create zones manually on Another server and then transfer them from Plesk's DNS.
Using AD integraed zones it is not needed to create zones manually. But this case is not sutable because Plesk does not support installation on DC.

 

[JackL]

Yeh, but it make sense when you install Plesk on member server. I think primary idea of each configuration to automate everything that possible. Creating primary and secondary also is security hole. There are a lot of software in Internet you can use to poison one's DNS

John S.G.

 

[eugenevdm]

I think the original idea behind Plesk Expand was to give a person at least partial functionality to move some of the services, such as e-mail and DNS, off the main server. Some other hosting control panels support this seperation of servers quite nicely. Unfortunately it appears that Plesk Expand is still either a very young product or not very high on the priority list and according to some informal research that I did, not widely supported and unstable. It's also not cheap.

My personal belief is that you should never have an e-mail server share functionality with a web server, and that you should also seperate DNS. But I'll have to wait and see if Plesk Expand is improved before I jump in.

 

[JackL]

The main problem behind all of these is Mysql which used as core storage for Plesk. It doesn't support clustering, and version 5.x which support clustering doesn't supported by Plesk

John S.G