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Mail-in-a-Box – one-click, easy-to-deploy email server

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Re: Mail-in-a-Box – one-click, easy-to-deploy email server

#51

Post by ericd »

mr_blobs wrote: post #2

I setup my own mail server last year and shortly gave up on the idea. Setting the server up isn't the problem. The problem is keeping your IP off of all the major blacklists. I wasn't even sending out mass emails and 30%+ of my email would never be delivered. I had to constantly check to see if my IP addresses were on the various spam lists (and fight to get my IPs off) and I just got tired of it. Companies like Goog…

I set up my own mail server and was sending bulk email (opt-in) with relatively little experience. Set up dkim and spf, and you should be fine. A bit arcane, but it's not the maintenance nightmare you imply. Once you get into automated bounce tracking, etc, it's a bit trickier, but no need to do that for personal email.

Re: Mail-in-a-Box – one-click, easy-to-deploy email server

#52

Post by anonymouslee »

atemerev wrote: post #14

Unfortunately, it requires a fresh Ubuntu installation / separate instance. I think it would be a perfect use case for Docker-based solution.

There's a Vagrantfile that you can just vagrant up:

https://github.com/mail-in-a-box/mailinabox/blob/master/Vagr...

I poked a bit and it appears that the setup script is interactive which complicates playing nicely with Docker somewhat. It installs nsd + postfix, rewrites config files in /etc and mucks with ufw. Could probably mimic some of this by mounting locally customized config files into the Docker container.

Re: Mail-in-a-Box – one-click, easy-to-deploy email server

#53

Post by Veen »

mr_blobs wrote: post #2

I setup my own mail server last year and shortly gave up on the idea. Setting the server up isn't the problem. The problem is keeping your IP off of all the major blacklists. I wasn't even sending out mass emails and 30%+ of my email would never be delivered. I had to constantly check to see if my IP addresses were on the various spam lists (and fight to get my IPs off) and I just got tired of it. Companies like Goog…

> The 'promotions' tab in gmail also made things worse for many small businessesaid

Do you mean "made it harder for small businesses to get eyeballs on their spam"?

Most consider that a good thing. It's only marketers and spammers who regret the bundling of these "valuable messages".

Re: Mail-in-a-Box – one-click, easy-to-deploy email server

#54

Post by neurostimulant »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #40

I'd like a mail server for jailbroken iPhones. I tried to install one from Cydia, but it was designed for Apple TV and sent my iPhone into a boot loop and I had to restore. Having a local mail server would be useful for making local P2P WiFi links, and emailing photos/music/etc directly between phones without Internet access.

Perhaps using an email server that's written in a scripting language would work? For example, https://github.com/zedshaw/lamson is written in python. Perhaps you could get it running on your jailbroken device if you could get python and pip installed.

Re: Mail-in-a-Box – one-click, easy-to-deploy email server

#55

Post by reitanqild »

peller wrote: post #32

If you're comfortable with command-line Linux, and have a basic understanding of DNS, setting this up from scratch is actually not all that hard. After researching the hell out of this a few weekends ago, the best guide I found on the subject is: https://workaround.org/ispmail/jessie Sure, it's technically for Debian, but if you're comfortable with Linux it's easily adaptable to other distributions. In order to get G…

> If you're comfortable with command-line Linux, and have a basic understanding of DNS, setting this up from scratch is actually not all that hard. After researching the h... out of this a few weekends ago, ...

You make it sound hard, just there, or do I misunderstand?

Re: Mail-in-a-Box – one-click, easy-to-deploy email server

#56

Post by cm2187 »

jwr wrote: post #47
mr_blobs wrote: post #2

I setup my own mail server last year and shortly gave up on the idea. Setting the server up isn't the problem. The problem is keeping your IP off of all the major blacklists. I wasn't even sending out mass emails and 30%+ of my email would never be delivered. I had to constantly check to see if my IP addresses were on the various spam lists (and fight to get my IPs off) and I just got tired of it. Companies like Goog…

I've been running my own mail server since 2001. Only once had a problem with blacklists when I moved the server to a new IP at a provider with bad spam reputation. Otherwise, this has never been a problem. Don't let Google and Facebook monopolize our communications.

> Don't let Google and Facebook monopolize our communications.

I do the same but the reality is that 99% of my correspondants use gmail, yahoo or hotmail. So these companies get a copy of all of my communications...

Re: Mail-in-a-Box – one-click, easy-to-deploy email server

#57

Post by cm2187 »

peller wrote: post #32

If you're comfortable with command-line Linux, and have a basic understanding of DNS, setting this up from scratch is actually not all that hard. After researching the hell out of this a few weekends ago, the best guide I found on the subject is: https://workaround.org/ispmail/jessie Sure, it's technically for Debian, but if you're comfortable with Linux it's easily adaptable to other distributions. In order to get G…

If you don't and are rather a windows guy, I strongly recommand Smartermail. They have a free edition. Very easy to setup, all in one solution with a good webmail. Supports ActiveSync (not free though), SPF, DKIM. But not let's encrypt.

One thing to know, you need to activate the option to use TLS for outgoing email. A bit of a stupid default in my opinion.

Re: Mail-in-a-Box – one-click, easy-to-deploy email server

#58

Post by stinos »

atemerev wrote: post #14

Unfortunately, it requires a fresh Ubuntu installation / separate instance. I think it would be a perfect use case for Docker-based solution.

There was some effort towards it and I'm still running a dockerized version without any problms whatsoever, but the maintainer considered Docker too hard to setup in the end (e.g. https://github.com/mail-in-a-box/mailinabox/issues/16)

Re: Mail-in-a-Box – one-click, easy-to-deploy email server

#59

Post by dingaling »

viraptor wrote: post #10
voltagex_ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Gmail and other really big providers are in a unique position for spam filtering. They have so many users that they get a continuously trained filter pretty much for free. They can instantly classify never-seen-before kind of spam in minutes because someone gets push notification on their phone and clicks "this is spam". Nobody with purely-technical solution to this problem can be better in practice. (although we're…

What types of spam do other people see in their personal mail servers?

The majority of spam I receive is from addresses that have been leaked ( Santander bank is particularly bad for those for some reason ) or bought in an acquisition; perhaps two or three per year. I just blacklist those addresses.

What really annoys me, though, is that eBay passes my unique-to-them email address to vendors from whom I buy items and several of them have added me to their mailing lists over the years, but thankfully de-subscribe has always worked.

Re: Mail-in-a-Box – one-click, easy-to-deploy email server

#60

Post by insertnickname »

viraptor wrote: post #10
voltagex_ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Gmail and other really big providers are in a unique position for spam filtering. They have so many users that they get a continuously trained filter pretty much for free. They can instantly classify never-seen-before kind of spam in minutes because someone gets push notification on their phone and clicks "this is spam". Nobody with purely-technical solution to this problem can be better in practice. (although we're…

I run my own mail server, and I get very little spam. Sometimes I go for days without a single spam message even getting through to my spam folder, much less my inbox. The last spam mail that got through to my spam folder was on November 25th. And it's not because spammers don't try, my server has rejected 206 mails in the last ~24 hours (and that's not counting the attempted open relay abuse).

My setup consists of Postfix with postscreen and SpamAssassin. Postscreen blocks clients on a certain type of protocol error that spammers are prone to (speaking out of turn) and based on DNSBLs[1], notably zen.spamhaus.org, which blocks most spammers.

SpamAssassin, in addition to the standard rules and bayes filtering, is configured with Pyzor, Razor2, DCC, and iXhash, and I have some custom rules as well.

I actually get far less spam with my self-hosted setup than I did when I used a paid e-mail service (although it was not Google).

Public IP reputation (DNSBLs) and spam fingerprint databases (Pyzor, Razor2, DCC, iXhash) make self-hosted spam filtering very feasible.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNSBL

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