61–70 of 311 posts
And if I need a Google/Apple email for usage on my phone, I'd rather just use that one instead of hosting my own email solution.
This is without even considering the fact that configuring email is not as trivial as say, setting up a website. And you're never going to get spam filtering as good as the Big Email corps.
Let's see... Postfix, Dovecot, SPF and OpenDKIM on the server-side, each of them with their own config. Then you've got to set up your domain, and domain headers on your domain host. Oh, DMARC is also another thing. Then, most ISPs will outright refuse to accept incoming mail from your IP address, since they've basically changed from blacklisting to whitelisting. So you've also got to relay your outgoing mail via you…
I run my own mail server and as long as you use TLS and the one that’s really easy (I can’t remember if it’s DKim or Dmark) most domains accept mail from you. I really didn’t have a hard time setting mine up and I’ve done it multiple times. Dovecot is a bit of a pain if you really want imap... but overall none of it is harder than most other things.
And this is precisely why I don’t think it’s worth it. I don’t want to have to worry that “most” domains will accept my mail, I want a big email service that has the clout to force domains to accept my mail. I shouldn’t have to solve the mystery of why my mail was rejected (or rather, why some provider thinks I’m sending spam). That’s why I do Fastmail.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And Postifx is not just one thing, it's: smtp, smtps, submission, relay etc... And Dovecot: pop3, pop3s, imap, imaps, lmtp, passdb, userdb, sql, ldap, seive etc. Look, I don't want Google changing this tomorrow because to something tied to and controlled by them because they don't do evel, isn't faster or people like it, but please, don't say it's not hard because you will be misleading people for sure Edit: to be cr…
Yes... and ooof! And then there's also the password/username database, that defaults to tying into the Linux pass/user database, so if you want to set up some custom login-data... ugh, I don't even want to think about it. I set it up once, maintain it here and then, and am keeping it, because dismantling the system is more work than maintaining it presently, but seriously... with the above setup, do it only for educa…
I then decided to search for a big-monolithic-do-it-all-solution (from a SW-perspective) and the only option I found was Xeams ( https://www.xeams.com/Xeams.htm ) - I didn't find anything open-source. I'm using it (the free variant) since 2017 and it works.
Runs on Java, provides all services (smtp, pop3, imap), has greylisting, has embedded user administration, users can have email-aliases, has a web-admin-UI, 1-click-sw-updates, etc... .
(tagline: "Take back control of your email with this easy-to-deploy mail server in a box.")
I haven't uses it for a while, but last time I wanted to setup a self-hosted server for a domain, this came out the best. (I've handed over the task to somebody else, so no idea how it went.)
It's not 'hard', it's 'a gigantic pain in the ass' which is (in normal word use) one form of 'hard'. Which is why most sane people stopped doing it themselves say 15 years ago. Especially for the few cents you can get professional 3rd party email hosting for. Edit: I also very much like the disingenuity of articles saying 'X isnt' hard! Just execute these 20 commands!' Duh, executing those commands isn't the problem,…
Eh, it used to be pretty bad but the other year the people from the openbsd project wrote a new mail server with a trivially easy to understand config file (I wrote mine from scratch just a couple hours after finding it.) If you’re already basically competent with the OS you’re using and have a machine with a decent connection that can be used for mail then it actually isn’t hard.
Even if I'm way off base about the mail server set up being this way, some people still consider this type of "saturday afternoon" project hard compared to something that just works out of the box without any fiddling and can be set up in 20 minutes. I'm not trying to be elitist by suggesting these people are dumb or lazy, just that the semantics of what "hard" is varies for people, especially with little projects that require fiddling/tweaking/looking for outside help.
* setting up gitlab ce is easy
* setting up LE certificate is easy
* setting up wordpress is easy
* setting up mail is easy
If at some point in the future any of the first three stop being easy in an obvious way, there's a whole team of developers who will work hard to restore easiness.
That's quite different from a blog author shrugging because their configuration-in-a-tweet is obsolete in three years.
Disclosure: Google employee. (I do not work on anything related to mail.)
However, ‘Hard’ is a subjective term. The deeper you are in a trade or the longer you have done it, the easier it comes to feel. I visited a family farm and found it very very hard to squeeze milk outta buffalo. My great uncle however has dealt with that buffalo that for years and didn’t sweat it one bit.
In a similar vein, do I really want to tend a buffalo in my backyard, when I can get the milk I need from a supermarket?
OT: Thunderbird org should create/sponsor its own email server software. That's the way to spur email development by causing development on both sides of the chain. Sometimes in unison. And they should also initiate an email service to put their development in action. Imagine the innovation that could happen then. - Email encryption standards for key acquisitions - folders/labels stored as imap keywords - large file…