Apple Mac OS X Server (version 10.2.3 or later) - Manual (Page 432)

432 Chapter 9
An incremental backup of the mail service folder can be fast and efficient. If you use a third-
party application to back up the mail service folder incrementally, the only files copied are
the small database file and the message files that are new or changed since the last backup.
Although you can restore only part of the mail service folder—some message files in the
AppleMail folder with or without the MacOSXMailDatabase file—restoring only part of the
mail service folder can corrupt the mail database. The mail service automatically attempts to
clean up a mail service folder that has been restored improperly. You can also clean up the
mail service folder manually. For instructions, see “Cleaning Up the Mail Files” on page 419.
After restoring the mail service folder, notify users that messages stored on the server have
been restored from a backup copy.
If you’re using the UNIX Sendmail program or another mail transfer agent instead of
Mac OS X Server’s SMTP service, you should also back up the contents of the /var/mail
folder. This folder is the standard location for UNIX mail delivery.
Where to Find More Information
You can find more information about mail service in books and on the Internet.
Books
For general information about mail protocols and other technologies, see these books:
m A good all-around introduction to mail service can be found in Internet Messaging, by
David Strom and Marshall T. Rose (Prentice Hall, 1998).
m For more information on MX records, see “DNS and Electronic Mail” in DNS and BIND,
3rd edition, by Paul Albitz, Cricket Liu, and Mike Loukides (O’Reilly and Associates, 1998).
m Also of interest may be Removing the Spam: Email Processing and Filtering, by Geoff
Mulligan (Addison-Wesley Networking Basics Series, 1999).
m To learn about email standards, see Essential E-Mail Standards: RFCs and Protocols
Made Practical, by Pete Loshin ( John Wiley & Sons, 1999).
Internet
There is an abundance of information about the different mail protocols, DNS, and other
related topics on the Internet.
Request for Comments (RFC) documents provide an overview of a protocol or service and
details about how the protocol should behave. If you are a novice server administrator, you
will probably find some of the background information in an RFC helpful. If you are an
experienced server administrator, you can find all the technical details about a protocol in its
RFC document. You can search for RFC documents by number at this Web site:
www.faqs.org/rfcs
LL0395.Book Page 432 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 11:44 AM