[imp] soft failure of database for preference?

[Sheeri Kritzer]

so, we have this spiffy production webmail server, and a spiffy production 
mysql server.  The problem is that if the mysql server goes down, webmail just 
breaks.  Is there something we can implement so if the mysql server goes down 
and someone is logged in, they just have no preferences?  (or is that what 
happens already?)

Also, is there a way to change the error page from when someone tries to login 

Basically, here's what I want to happen...

when mysql breaks:
logging in gives a custom error page
if someone's already logged in, they get a warning at the top of their page 
saying something like "the preferences database is down, but everything else 
works".  (and have that be true).

-Sheeri Kritzer
Systems Administrator
University Systems Group
Tufts University
617-627-3925
sheeri.kritzer@tufts.edu