When dissaster strikes...

Okay maybe anybody can help me out with the following question;

As it was holliday break here in Belgium from 15 till 22 here, I like most people went on ski holliday in the Czech Rep. leaving my trusty ISPConfig server 2 with Debian Lenny unattended, because, hey it was over a year working without any complaints of my 12 clients .

Badly enough on the first day of ski i got a call of one of my clients that there Outlook complaint that it couldnt log in to the mail server, then after telling the client that I would have a look as soon as I am of the mountain and find a wifi spot. During the ski down I received 7 more calls and started to worry...

When I found a WiFi spot I found out that the trusty server was no longer... at least, no response on the mail or http, ftp or putty but still a respond on the IP.

Sadly enough I had to tell my clients that there was nothing I could do, because I took the keys of the office, and nobody could get to the server at that point.

Now that I am back i found that the server due to a power faillure was down, and back up and that it was hanging on the FSCK (auto fsck not working, need to manual... bla bla bla...)

To get to the question, is there a way to setup a backup MX server that is in a different place, with a different IP??? and is there a way to prevent such a thing happening, or do I need to give out extra keys

Anybody thanks in advance any help is appreciated.

Etienne

 

Do you have UPS? Raid?

Raid 1, Raid 5, Raid 10 are good if harddrive fails, ups if power goes down. Set in BIOS that server automatically reboots in case of power failure.

Ser up secondary MX to hold the queue until the primary goes online. Always have a Plan B incase you are sick, on vacation. Always have someone who can help if you are not around.

Having services down for 3-5 days is not acceptable

 

Okay, to sum it up...

I will install a backup MX (Thanks Till) and I have pimped up my existing UPS, instead of a small standard battery it now is connected to a huge car battery
and it should hold power of the server and router/modem for 6+ hours.

And I have given somebody an extra key to be able to fix things...

I will look into raid storage configuration.

And to be down for 7 days being unacceptable THAT i understand, that is why i am searching for help to prevent that.

Thanks anyway, and if anyone can think of another thing I need to think about, then please.

Kind regards,

Etienne