I'm in the midst of figuring out the best method to monitor my linode. I'm probably going to give 'monit' a try (see http://www.tildeslash.com/monit/). It seems to cover the bases. Nagios looks very cool too, but looks like a major time investment.

I was wondering if there's a backup smtp server on the host itself I might be able to use to send email alerts, if the smtp server running on my linode dies for some reason?

No biggie if not, just like to have redundency when it comes to monitoring

Paul

I hope there isn't a mail process listening on the hosts themselves, but anyway..

I could help you out here. I'd be happy to give relay access for your IP on my linode. My linode is on host 4 though, and if you are also on host 4 you may want to choose someone else in case the entire host dies.

The host themselves have essentially nothing but your Linodes, and ssh running. I really, really want to stay away from administering semi-open mail servers on each of the hosts. Sounds like a nightmare

I just googled for public backup mx servers, but didn't come up with much, probably because of the same reasons that make me scared

-Chris

I probably should have thought about it a little more before posting...

All I really need is an smtp client to send the alert even if postfix dies. It looks like monit has one built-in anyhow, so there's no problem to solve...

I agree with you, Chris - if it's not necessary, don't run it I was really only curious if there was one available already for other reasons. Actually I'm glad there's little else on the linodes

Thanks for the generous offer dmuench, though I think it won't be needed after all. BTW I'm on host9 (at Hurricane Electric).

Thanks,

Paul

Using an MTA like exim in a send-only configuration can handle outgoing mail duty in a reasonably small footprint:

http://library.linode.com/email/exim/

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