SmarterMail Help
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Managing SmarterMail High Availability

This page provides some information about various parts of the SmarterMail HA cluster. It's broken down to four (4) tabs at the top of the page: Server Health, Hubs, Nodes, Domains, and Accounts.

Server Health

The Server Health tab displays information about all servers in your SmarterMail cluster, including all hubs and nodes, whether active or standbys. This allows cluster administrators to see the status of their entire cluster. Each server listed displays the following information:

  • Machine Name - This is the friendly name given to the hub when it was initially set up.
  • Server Type - Whether the server is a hub or node.
  • Status - The state the hub is currently in, including whether it's a standby.
  • Endpoint - The IP address assigned to the server.
  • Server Version - The version of SmarterMail that's running on that hub or node.
  • Last Active - This is the date and time of the most recent communication with the server.

Hubs

The Hubs tab displays all hubs that are part of the HA cluster. Each hub listed displays some information pertaining to the hub. This includes:

  • Machine Name - This is the friendly name given to the hub when it was initially set up.
  • Status - The state the hub is currently in. These include:
    • Initializing - The hub start up phase.
    • Nominal - The hub is running. The State will transition from Initializing to Nominal to show that the node is active.
  • Leader - When a checkmark appears in this column, the checked hub is the "leader", or primary hub in the cluster. It has the ability to "make decisions" for all hubs when such a decision needs to be made. (There can be only one Leader in an HA cluster.)
  • Last Active - This is the date and time of the most recent communication with the hub.

See Adding Hubs and Nodes for information on adding a new hub.

Nodes

The Nodes tab displays all nodes that are part of the HA cluster. Each node listed displays some information pertaining to that node. This includes:

  • Machine Name - The friendly name of the node.
  • Status - The state the node is currently in. These include:
    • Initializing - The node start up phase.
    • Activating - The node is essentially "Active", but it's still coming online. (E.g., It's waiting for SmarterMail to initialize.)
    • Active - The node is running. Ideally, the State will transition from Initializing to Active.
    • Standby - The node is a Standby. That means it's ready to take over should another node go Inactive.
    • Idle - The node has come out of an Inactive state and is waiting for the cluster administrator to make it Active.
    • Inactive - The node is in a failure state. This could be a service crashing, the server was shut down, it dropped its network connection, etc.
  • Standby - Indicates whether the node is in a Standby State. (See above.)
  • Last Active - The last time the node communicated with the hub.
  • Failover - Whether failover is enabled or not for the node.
  • Users - The total number of users on the node.
  • Domains - The total number of domains on the node.
  • Mount Volume - The share being used by the node.

Node Actions

The Nodes tab also contains some buttons worth mentioning.

  • Refresh - This refreshes and updates the page.
  • New - This allows you to configure a new node. After configuration, the node must be set up. For more information, see Hub and Node Configuration.
  • Actions (⋮) - This button has a dropdown that offers a few different options:
    • Manage Node - This allows you to log in as the primary administrator (or cluster administrator) to the node and gives you full administrative access to the SmarterMail installation.
    • Delete - This permanently deletes the node from the hub.
    • Restore Idle Node - This allows a cluster administrator to make a node that has come out of an Inactive state Active again.
    • Enable Failover - This allows the node to failover to any existing standby should a node become inactive.
    • Disable Failover - This removes the ability for the node to failover to an existing standby should an issue occur.

See Adding Hubs and Nodes for information on adding a new node.

Domains

The Domains tab displays all domains managed by the hub, and includes information about each. This includes:

  • Domain Name - The domain that's hosted by the cluster. If any domain or user aliases are associated to the domain, they'll be listed in parentheses.
  • Machine Name - The name of the node where the domain is being hosted.
  • Node State - This mirrors the State of the node on the Nodes tab.
  • Enabled - Whether the domain is enabled or not. (No checkmark means the domain's Status is set to disabled.)
  • Users - The number of users for the domain / the number of users allowed for the domain.
  • Disk Space - The amount of disk spaced currently used by the domain / the amount of disk space allocated for the domain.

Domain Actions

Using the Actions (⋮) button offers you the ability to Manage a selected domain. (You can also do this by right-clicking on the domain and using the Manage Domain option from the context menu.) When you manage a domain you are essentially impersonating the primary system administrator for the domain. This allows you full control over all aspects of the domain being managed.

Accounts

The Accounts tab displays all "accounts" listed across the various nodes. Accounts can be users, aliases, mailing lists, domain resource addresses, etc. So it's more than just users. A cluster administrator can use this tab to search for a particular account, then move to the node that has that account to review logs or troubleshoot what requires troubleshooting.

  • Username - The username associated to the account.
  • Domain - The domain name associated to the account.
  • Enabled - Whether the account is enabled or not.
  • Machine Name - The node associated to the account.
  • Type - The account type: user, alias, mailing list, etc.

Account Actions

Using the Actions (⋮) button offers you the ability to Impersonate the account you've selected. (You can also do this by right-clicking on an account and using the Impersonate User option from the context menu.) When you impersonate an account you are essentially logging in to the account, or impersonating a user. This allows you full control over all aspects of the account being impersonated.

See Add Domains for information about adding domains. Domains can be added from this page or from the node itself. Regardless of how it's done, the process is the same.

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