Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#171

Post by nickpsecurity » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 10:16 PM UTC

reallyimran wrote: post #146

jwr wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Email is one of the bastions of the decentralised Internet and we should hang on to it. This. I hope someone will eventually create an "E-mail server in a box" package for Ubuntu LTS, so that more people can run their own E-mail. I'm not saying it has to be super-easy for everyone, just that it should avoid unnecessary chore work (like configuring postfix to always use TLS, or plugging postgrey into postfix).

There is something you can do to install that : https://mailinabox.email/

That attempt at the problem looks pretty nice. Thanks for sharing it.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#172

Post by nickpsecurity » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 10:19 PM UTC

noinsight wrote: post #163

pflanze wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2015/q4/11 PS. maybe that's one of the vulnerabilities mentioned in the report (1). Anyway it's an argument for me to run Qmail/qpsmtpd instead. (1) https://www.qualys.com/2015/10/02/opensmtpd-audit-report.txt

Yeah those issues were found in the Qualys audit. They have been fixed so the codebase should only be stronger now. I just wish we had something that wasn't written in C.

Try running any such program through Softbound + CETS or SAFEcode (already in LLVM). They turn C programs memory-safe. Should knock out most of your risk immediately with an acceptable performance hit unless your volume is really, really high. Code-Pointer Integrity at least protects control flow with max of around 10% penalty. Given they're all alpha by few developers, they need more people using them on various software and doing error reports if they fail.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#173

Post by ptero » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 10:21 PM UTC

mrb wrote: post #88

One little trick that I rarely see mentioned for working around the negative or neutral reputation your MTA's IP might have is that you can route your outgoing emails through another MTA that has a higher reputation. For example route them through smtp.gmail.com (or for other options see https://support.google.com/a/answer/176600?hl=en ). It does not mean you have to use Gmail. It does not mean you have to change you…

But doesn't this also mean that google will read it and use the info in targeted ads, analytics, etc. If so, it might make this approach less desirable if your goal is a decentralized comm channel not spied on by big guys.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#174

Post by FollowSteph3 » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 10:29 PM UTC

It's possible but it's not worth it unless you have a lot of knowledge about it or a lot of time and enjoy it. That's why most small to medium companies outsource this to services like sendgrid, mailchimp, etc.

You can't do everything so you have to pick your battles ;)

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#175

Post by wslh » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 10:35 PM UTC

FollowSteph3 wrote: post #174

It's possible but it's not worth it unless you have a lot of knowledge about it or a lot of time and enjoy it. That's why most small to medium companies outsource this to services like sendgrid, mailchimp, etc. You can't do everything so you have to pick your battles ;)

> That's why most small to medium companies outsource this to services like...

Indeed big companies outsource mail servers too, that was very surprising at first but reduce [effective and hidden] costs significantly and with a good SLA they can receive an excellent service.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#176

Post by bluejekyll » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 10:37 PM UTC

I used to run my own MTA, and then I get fed up staying ahead of spammers.

I chose postfix which has a lot of off the shelf support for blacklisting and such, but even so I found that I couldn't stay ahead of spammers and their (new at the time) techniques like reflection attacks.

Anyway, while it's fun to play with this, unless you want to spend time every week keeping it up to date, etc., I found it mostly a drain on other better things I could be doing.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#177

Post by marmot777 » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 10:38 PM UTC

DMARC

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#178

Post by quickben » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 10:39 PM UTC

a3n wrote: post #111

madez wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with you. I consider email legacy technology because of its reliance upon DNS and static IP addresses. These two requirements make hosting email unnecessarily costly.

What replaces email?

For most of the people I interact with, and most of the usecases: Viber

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#179

Post by zbuf » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 10:41 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #31

mverwijs wrote: post #16

Been running it for over 15 years. No SPF. No dkim. Never had complaints, though threads like these have me worried.

You and me both. I think the risks are overplayed, but at the same time it's probably about time to join the future with SPF/DKIM/DMARC.

And IPv6 is that future. My resource is that when you start connecting on IPv6 many mail providers will consider SPF and proper reverse DNS mandatory.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#180

Post by havetocharge » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 10:42 PM UTC

bluejekyll wrote: post #176

I used to run my own MTA, and then I get fed up staying ahead of spammers. I chose postfix which has a lot of off the shelf support for blacklisting and such, but even so I found that I couldn't stay ahead of spammers and their (new at the time) techniques like reflection attacks. Anyway, while it's fun to play with this, unless you want to spend time every week keeping it up to date, etc., I found it mostly a drain…

I too ran my own mail server for years. I wasn't as rigorous as you in applying patches.. perhaps monthly or quarterly. At the end of the day though, it was the superiority of the Gmail client that won me back.