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Show HN: Mox - Modern full-featured low-maintenance self-hosted mail server

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Re: Show HN: Mox - Modern full-featured low-maintenance self-hosted mail server

#71

Post by itslennysfault »

Second self-hosted mail server in 2 days. Are people really hosting their own mail servers? Why?

I did this for about 10 years and mostly it was uneventful and worked fine. HOWEVER, a little less than once a year it would break and I would suddenly not be receiving emails and would have to scramble to fix me mail server when literally anything else would be a better use of my time. It was a good learning experience, but kinda pointless tbh. There are so many free/cheap very reliable maintenance free (for me) options for email that I can't for one second understand why anyone would host their own (even as someone that did for years).

Re: Show HN: Mox - Modern full-featured low-maintenance self-hosted mail server

#72

Post by aareet »

superkuh wrote: post #68

I highly suggest that technical people like HN readers use the https://workaround.org/ispmail tutorials instead and set up postfix/dovecot from their OS repos. You'll learn enough on the way to fix things when they do go wrong rather than relying on some turnkey stuff who's internals are obscure and hard to fix when the inevitable problems happen. Setting up a proper mailserver this way does take a few hours (from VP…

I’ve actually found that this is not the case and that while the learning is enjoyable, it’s very difficult to retain, especially if the result is a low maintenance server. A decade after I set it up, I will most certainly have forgotten how I set it up in the first place (speaking from experience).

Re: Show HN: Mox - Modern full-featured low-maintenance self-hosted mail server

#74

Post by mjl- »

superkuh wrote: post #68

I highly suggest that technical people like HN readers use the https://workaround.org/ispmail tutorials instead and set up postfix/dovecot from their OS repos. You'll learn enough on the way to fix things when they do go wrong rather than relying on some turnkey stuff who's internals are obscure and hard to fix when the inevitable problems happen. Setting up a proper mailserver this way does take a few hours (from VP…

It's certainly a good idea to understand how email works when you are running your own email server. I don't think setting up half a dozen services is the best way to get that knowledge though. Ideally, mox will explain some of it on its admin pages in the future. But I understand your point. Existing mail server components are long-lived, battle-tested, high-quality.

I wouldn't say internals of mox are obscure, it's all open source and relatively lean code (but clearly I'm biased). But indeed, if something goes wrong, you may not currently be able to google-search your way out of it. Mox is very young. The FAQ suggests first installing it a subdomain to gain experience, instead of switching your email over immediately.

FWIW, I implemented the mail export functionality before import functionality. You can easily get a tgz or zip with all maildirs or mbox files out of mox.

Re: Show HN: Mox - Modern full-featured low-maintenance self-hosted mail server

#75

Post by pas »

itslennysfault wrote: post #71

Second self-hosted mail server in 2 days. Are people really hosting their own mail servers? Why? I did this for about 10 years and mostly it was uneventful and worked fine. HOWEVER, a little less than once a year it would break and I would suddenly not be receiving emails and would have to scramble to fix me mail server when literally anything else would be a better use of my time. It was a good learning experience,…

For me it's path-dependence ... we're already hosting a few sites, used to host stuff for a foundation, plus their site sent a lot of newsletters.

Nowadays I can wholeheartedly recommend Mailgun for outgoing mail. For personal/incoming ... well, Proton seems okay-ish.

Re: Show HN: Mox - Modern full-featured low-maintenance self-hosted mail server

#76

Post by navigate8310 »

aareet wrote: post #72
superkuh wrote: post #68

I highly suggest that technical people like HN readers use the https://workaround.org/ispmail tutorials instead and set up postfix/dovecot from their OS repos. You'll learn enough on the way to fix things when they do go wrong rather than relying on some turnkey stuff who's internals are obscure and hard to fix when the inevitable problems happen. Setting up a proper mailserver this way does take a few hours (from VP…

I’ve actually found that this is not the case and that while the learning is enjoyable, it’s very difficult to retain, especially if the result is a low maintenance server. A decade after I set it up, I will most certainly have forgotten how I set it up in the first place (speaking from experience).

This is generally true. Patiently documenting steps as well as logging any corrective and preventive actions (something that I learnt when studying for ISO 9001) is prudent.

Re: Show HN: Mox - Modern full-featured low-maintenance self-hosted mail server

#77

Post by groestl »

navigate8310 wrote: post #76
aareet wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve actually found that this is not the case and that while the learning is enjoyable, it’s very difficult to retain, especially if the result is a low maintenance server. A decade after I set it up, I will most certainly have forgotten how I set it up in the first place (speaking from experience).

This is generally true. Patiently documenting steps as well as logging any corrective and preventive actions (something that I learnt when studying for ISO 9001) is prudent.

I (mostly) stopped documenting in prose and used ansible instead. It's a bit more work, but it paid off numerous times since then. The prose that's still left, because it's really really to cumbersome to implement, is left in the comments of ansible files.

Re: Show HN: Mox - Modern full-featured low-maintenance self-hosted mail server

#78

Post by tomatocracy »

scandox wrote: post #14
callesgg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to get a proper self owned ip range with your own WHOIS info for your mail server. On google I found that one can get a IPv4 /30 subnet for about 11 USD a year.

Not a huge amount of hosting companies support Bring Your Own IP do they?

More do than you'd think.

But for IPv4, true BYOIP isn't really possible for less than a /24 block, which is overkill for just selfhosting personal email.

It also usually involves needing to set up a company to own/lease the block if you haven't already got one.

Re: Show HN: Mox - Modern full-featured low-maintenance self-hosted mail server

#79

Post by lifty »

superkuh wrote: post #68

I highly suggest that technical people like HN readers use the https://workaround.org/ispmail tutorials instead and set up postfix/dovecot from their OS repos. You'll learn enough on the way to fix things when they do go wrong rather than relying on some turnkey stuff who's internals are obscure and hard to fix when the inevitable problems happen. Setting up a proper mailserver this way does take a few hours (from VP…

I don't agree with this take, talking as someone who has maintained their own email server in one form or another for many years. I think the separation of components in the traditional email stack is absolute bonkers and an artefact of various historical happenings, and not a technical necessity. That's why I love projects like Maddy or Mox who ship the whole stack in a single binary. Yes, you need to learn about DKIM, SPF and other high level email protocol concepts, but you shouldn't have to know how components interact between each other. So my recommendation to people is to go with projects like Maddy and Mox, and hopefully more people will host their own emails because of the lower entry barrier, so we can get some empathy from huge providers like Google and Microsoft.

Re: Show HN: Mox - Modern full-featured low-maintenance self-hosted mail server

#80

Post by layer8 »

superkuh wrote: post #68

I highly suggest that technical people like HN readers use the https://workaround.org/ispmail tutorials instead and set up postfix/dovecot from their OS repos. You'll learn enough on the way to fix things when they do go wrong rather than relying on some turnkey stuff who's internals are obscure and hard to fix when the inevitable problems happen. Setting up a proper mailserver this way does take a few hours (from VP…

The main benefit of this is (a) when using a distribution like Debian, you get automatic security updates, and (b) it is virtually guaranteed to be supported for decades, and there is extensive documentation. It’s also more flexible to customize, and it integrates with other packages and features of the distribution.
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