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The “mail is hard” myth

poolp.org

171–180 of 311 posts

Re: The “mail is hard” myth

#171
post #145
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience of over 15 years, the "rules" have only changed 3 times since I started. First to require good reverse DNS, then to require SPF, last to require DKIM. The transition on each of those was generally several years with plenty of publicity.

You're forgetting DMARC.

If you already have SPF and/or DKIM, adding DMARC is a matter of setting one static DNS record and never changing it again. Hardly difficult.

Re: The “mail is hard” myth

#172
Last time I installed a mail server was a couple of month ago. I consider mysql a pro, I feel pretty familiar on command line, working in this busines as a SysOp and Developer for a couple of decades. But one not just "set up a mail server". Saying "mail is not hard" sounds kind of cynical to me. You need to handle more than one setup, you need to consider compatibilities, you need to make it right, if you want to have a secure and reliable solution.

If your not in the busines of setting up mail servers every day: Mail is hard. As long as there is no download-and-run-solution for a mail-server: Mail is hard.

Re: The “mail is hard” myth

#173
post #41

Which user demographic is running one's own email server ideal for? My consultancy handles "all things technology" for multiple small businesses (sized 1-50 people, located mostly in South Asia). Anecdotally: A lot of these folks are happily using mybusinesname.accounts@gmail.com and so-on, but decide to get their own domain for the added veneer of "professionalism". Many are happy to use Yandex (1000 users with your…

Lots of businesses run their own email server. It's not that complicated. The easiest way to do it is to buy an email server, you can use Exchange or you can use something like iMail or Kerio. Install that on a server, get a static IP from your ISP, put the server behind a firewall, and point your DNS servers for your domain to it. Then generate an SPF record, and you should be good. That's how many people do it. As…

Setting these things up is not the hard thing. Building reputation, not getting refused because your subnet neighbour decided to start spamming, having to deal with BIG_EMAIL_HOST not accepting your emails, bla bla bla.

Setting things up is actually the fun, easy part.

Re: The “mail is hard” myth

#174
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not GP, but it matches my experience: with reverse DNS, DKIM, SPF, being in DNSWL (and not in DNSBLs) some of my messages end up in Gmail spam folders (very recently received a reply to a message I sent 3 years ago because of that, for instance). A while ago there were strange issues with Google-hosted mailing lists as well, with some messages not being visible even to an ML administrator, while Gmail servers accepte…

> some of my messages end up in Gmail spam folders (very recently received a reply to a message I sent 3 years ago because of that, for instance) How did this happen if Gmail deletes spam after some weeks?

Indeed, a quick search suggests that spam is automatically removed every 30 days there. The wording was "Google hid it from me", so either I have wrongly assumed that it's about the spam folder, or it is possible to disable autoremoval.

Edit: or, as the sibling comment suggests, it behaves strangely with respect to removal as well.

Re: The “mail is hard” myth

#175
post #132
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also recommend setting up a dmarc record so you can monitor your deliverability. Spam however is still a hassle and you're never going to match Gmail or Outlook when you're small. Say it takes a few hundred identical spammy emails to trigger a filter. For Gmail it means the chance of receiving that spam is less than 1 in a million. If you're small and managing say a 1000 users - a large percentage will end up…

>Say it takes a few hundred identical spammy emails to trigger a filter Wait, is this really the way how spam filters work? All I need to do is to add a random number to all emails to bypass spam filters?

In essence this is one of the principles, the thing is the emails don't need to be perfectly identical, just identical-ish with the identicalish matching implementation being not public (as this would immediately lead to spammers adding just enough randomness to whatever they are sending)

Re: The “mail is hard” myth

#176
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not GP, but it matches my experience: with reverse DNS, DKIM, SPF, being in DNSWL (and not in DNSBLs) some of my messages end up in Gmail spam folders (very recently received a reply to a message I sent 3 years ago because of that, for instance). A while ago there were strange issues with Google-hosted mailing lists as well, with some messages not being visible even to an ML administrator, while Gmail servers accepte…

> some of my messages end up in Gmail spam folders (very recently received a reply to a message I sent 3 years ago because of that, for instance) How did this happen if Gmail deletes spam after some weeks?

I recently checked my Trash folder in Gmail. I had emails in there that were several years old, right below the text that says Gmail deletes emails in the Trash folder older than 30 days.

Re: The “mail is hard” myth

#178
The only issue I had setting up a mail server was sending mail to servers using some service which blocks my domain. Places like my university and my work using Proofpoint, for example, seem to only allow mail from large, easily verifiable domains.

Re: The “mail is hard” myth

#179
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or give me capabilities that I don’t have by paying someone else? The same can be said "why should I grow my own veggies when I can buy them from the supermarket?" - The point is always, always, about Freedom.

When you eat home grown vegetables, the experience isn’t objectively worse. When you run your own mail server it is. If you were running your own restaurant and your home grown vegetables caused a worse customer experience would you do it? Running your own mail server which causes more of your mail to go to spam is worse than using a commercial provider.

"When you eat home grown vegetables, the experience isn’t objectively worse. When you run your own mail server it is."

^ I both run my own mail server and use someone else's service for another purpose. My experience running my own mail server is objectively WAY BETTER than using the commercial provider (and I've been doing this for many years in multiple scenarios).

Just because your experience (even if it is repeated) with certain technology goes one way, that doesn't make it universally true.

Re: The “mail is hard” myth

#180
post #104
post #68

Managed mail server clusters for years with an ISP. Agreed, too many things that can break and cause PITA. 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 s…

Buffalo milking is the new yak shaving

Yak shaving refers to a task, that leads you to perform another related task and so on, and so on — all distracting you from your original goal.

Buffalo milking seems to be variously related to experience (see effortless squeezing) or Buffalo as a service ie. no buffalo on-prem or a backyard required.

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