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As the original post didn't mention servers accessing mailboxes on the same disk system I assumed they were supposed to be entirely separate. It's true though that using a shared mail directory with two servers can work, but as you say there are a number of complications with that.

/Rolf
 

<p>As the original post didn't mention servers accessing mailboxes on the same disk system I assumed they were supposed to be entirely separate. It's true though that using a shared mail directory with two servers can work, but as you say there are a number of complications with that.</p><p>/Rolf  </p>

I was considering setting up two MercuryP servers serving the same set of users.  The question is, if a user downloads her mail from one server and then connects to the second server, would she get a second copy of her mail or does the second server have a way to tell if the mail has already been retrieved?

Similarly, if I setup two  MercuryS servers serving the same set of users, would there be a possiblity of the servers trying to save email to the same filename?  I.e. is it possible for them to try to generate the same unique filename when storing a new email to the users' inbox?

Please don't ask why I would want to consider this setup, it's just a thought experiment.

<p>I was considering setting up two MercuryP servers serving the same set of users.  The question is, if a user downloads her mail from one server and then connects to the second server, would she get a second copy of her mail or does the second server have a way to tell if the mail has already been retrieved? </p><p>Similarly, if I setup two  MercuryS servers serving the same set of users, would there be a possiblity of the servers trying to save email to the same filename?  I.e. is it possible for them to try to generate the same unique filename when storing a new email to the users' inbox?</p><p>Please don't ask why I would want to consider this setup, it's just a thought experiment. </p>

There is no functionality in Mercury to have multiple servers handling the same mailboxes, so the kind of synchronization that you outline won't be possible. Just copying mail to another server is possible, though (for instance with a rule that make a copy of all messages to a special mailbox that the other server collects from with POP3), but that's not the same thing.

/Rolf 

<p>There is no functionality in Mercury to have multiple servers handling the same mailboxes, so the kind of synchronization that you outline won't be possible. Just copying mail to another server is possible, though (for instance with a rule that make a copy of all messages to a special mailbox that the other server collects from with POP3), but that's not the same thing.</p><p>/Rolf </p>

Rolf,

You are correct that Mercury/32 is not designed to do that but I've been doing that for years with both Mercury and Mercury/32.  You can't access the same account concurrently since the opening of the POP3 session blocks other POP3 sessions to the same account but I've not found this to be all that much of a problem.  The multiple servers are also not really keeping track of the status of the mail left in the POP3 account, that's handled by the client if it's only downloading unread mail and both servers are set to show all mail in the mailbox.  If the servers are set to only show unread mail then both servers will see the same markers and only offer up the mail that was not previously downloaded.

If you are using IMAP4 that can be problems with two separate servers accessing the same mailboxes since each server sees only one connection and so does not block concurrent access file/folder deletes.


<p>Rolf,</p><p>You are correct that Mercury/32 is not designed to do that but I've been doing that for years with both Mercury and Mercury/32.  You can't access the same account concurrently since the opening of the POP3 session blocks other POP3 sessions to the same account but I've not found this to be all that much of a problem.  The multiple servers are also not really keeping track of the status of the mail left in the POP3 account, that's handled by the client if it's only downloading unread mail and both servers are set to show all mail in the mailbox.  If the servers are set to only show unread mail then both servers will see the same markers and only offer up the mail that was not previously downloaded.</p><p>If you are using IMAP4 that can be problems with two separate servers accessing the same mailboxes since each server sees only one connection and so does not block concurrent access file/folder deletes. </p><p> </p>

Similarly, if I setup two  MercuryS servers serving the same set of

users, would there be a possiblity of the servers trying to save email

to the same filename?  I.e. is it possible for them to try to generate

the same unique filename when storing a new email to the users' inbox?

I've had multiple servers delivering mail to the same mailbox structure using both Netware and Windows and never had a problem with this sort of clashing.  The algorithm used by Mercury assumes that there can be other applications creating CNM files in a users new mail directory.  For example, PMail and Mercury can both be delivering mail to a users new mail directory when you are using PMail in the network mode with direct delivery.  
<blockquote>Similarly, if I setup two  MercuryS servers serving the same set of users, would there be a possiblity of the servers trying to save email to the same filename?  I.e. is it possible for them to try to generate the same unique filename when storing a new email to the users' inbox?</blockquote>I've had multiple servers delivering mail to the same mailbox structure using both Netware and Windows and never had a problem with this sort of clashing.  The algorithm used by Mercury assumes that there can be other applications creating CNM files in a users new mail directory.  For example, PMail and Mercury can both be delivering mail to a users new mail directory when you are using PMail in the network mode with direct delivery.  
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