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How to run your own mail server (2017)
41–50 of 270 posts
Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Writing one yourself is it's own fun project!
Fun is a very curious way of putting it, considering how batshit crazy IMAP is. The rest of the involved email standards are also a huge dumpster fire. I'll let Ricardo Signes do the talking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JENdgiAPD6c
I wrote a webmail client (I've apparently long since lost most of the code) to go along with a personal email server I was running about 12 years ago, so it's entirely possible I was just speaking for myself.
Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)
#43If you're running Windows, you can download SmarterMail. It's free for 10 mailboxes. Has mail, calendar, collaboration and a slew of more stuff. https://www.smartertools.com/smartermail/downloads https://www.smartertools.com/smartermail/business-email-serv...
Wow, that takes me back. I remember setting up and using all three of the SmarterTools products 15+ years ago. They were fantastic.
Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)
#44Then you realize the true pain of having a near-zero reputation when trying to email anything to people on Gmail, Yahoo, Live, etc, etc. Expect to go to spam even if you have DKIM, SPF, and no relaying. If anyone actually knows the secret to not having your own mail-server's mail go to spam on these bigger systems, please tell, I've Googled it for years with no success.
GMail even considers some emails from Google to be spam. I missed some important (billing and security notification) emails from Google this way.
Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)
#45A ( somewhat ) happy medium between hosting your own email ( and dealing with getting IP blocked ) and fully entrusting youtself to Google is to use webmail as provided by your domain name registrar. For example, gandi.net provides web mail on your own domain. Even, better, it has support for wildcard email just like google does.
gandi.net doesn't support external domains. I'd be thankful for any recommendations that aren't totally overpriced and allow for external domains.
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Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)
#46Then you realize the true pain of having a near-zero reputation when trying to email anything to people on Gmail, Yahoo, Live, etc, etc. Expect to go to spam even if you have DKIM, SPF, and no relaying. If anyone actually knows the secret to not having your own mail-server's mail go to spam on these bigger systems, please tell, I've Googled it for years with no success.
This criticism came up last time too, and I replied that I've been running my own mail server for 20 years off of a DSL line, and I have no trouble sending to anybody (that I've heard of from recipients nor MAILER-DAEMON).
I have DKIM, SPF and no relaying and the only issue in recent memory was when AT&T started bouncing me for some reason. I emailed postmaster@ saying "hey wats up," and the block was removed a day or so later.
Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)
#47There's something that isn't really clear to me:
Would Google still suspect my mail of being spam If I bring my own domain to Gsuite or rackspace (for instance) ?
Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)
#48Although you can run your own mail server, it’s a bit like rolling your own crypto.
It really is not. At most it can be tedious, because it has large surface area of protocols and formats. Most of them other than SMTP and message format are optional.
Minimal mail system involves just postfix with config in a bunch of files, delivering mail to a folder on the server, and pretty much everything on top, like SPF,DKIM,DMARC,... is optional.
You can ssh to your server from anywhere and run mutt there, or install a webmail if you're into web stuff. That's pretty much all that's needed for a basic thing. Security wise, there's not much to do wrong in this setup. Mail server is open for reception by default as it should be and submission is only allowed from localhost.
Webmail can be protected via HTTP auth and ssl. As long as your password is secure, noone will get there that way.
Rolling your own crypto is a much bigger can of worms.
Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)
#49Kudos to the author for this, this is an endeavor of madness IMHO...
The only thing I've ever failed to setup was a functioning mail server using Postfix and Dovecot (it was like ~2007/8). It was a circle of configuration hell I would wish on no one and since then I've never understood why anyone would want to run their own mail server. Pure, unadulterated, hell... I honestly don't even know why we have email at all it's so shit (obviously I do, but hopefully the sentiment I'm expressing is clear).
Granted, if you know how to do it, once it's "running" things mostly work (I've known plenty of people who didn't fail as miserably as I did)... but as others have mentioned actually sending emails and not being labeled as SPAM is almost impossible. Plus, making sure your service is literally ALWAYS available, is really quite tricky. It's pretty damn easy to miss some emails.
I keep hoping some other protocol will take off so we can free ourselves from email, but it looks like the chance of that ever happening is probably zero.
Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)
#50I've been doing this for inbound email on my domains, and outbound mail from daemons and system services. I don't think relying on your personal email server for all email is practical (deliverability), but there are good use cases.