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How to run your own mail server (2017)

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Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#71

Post by pinjiz »

The key to get high delivery rates to GMail and Office 365 is to setup DMARC. When you have a proper DMARC configuration (and at least SPF) your delivery problems will suddenly go away.

Hosting your own mail server is not rocket science, but you need to have solid sysadmin skills and a good understanding of email as a whole.

If anyone is interested in doing this: Start simple with only Postfix and Dovecot, don't use a database for username/mailbox configuration as most tutorials suggest (start with text files instead). You can also start with OpenSMTPD and Dovecot if you think that Postfix is too complicated.

And if your setup is finally running, make sure to setup proper monitoring (e.g. make sure your mail server is running and answering SMTP connections). You can use free tools like uptimerobot.com for that and get notified before you loose mail.

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#72

Post by jasode »

rhizome wrote: post #46
dpcan wrote: post #22

Then 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 o…

>I've been running my own mail server for 20 years

Yes, maybe rhizome is successfully running his own personal mail server but your anecdote isn't really relevant. We can't learn from your example because the hidden rules of reputation & spam may not affect you but will affect others.

For example, a commenter (lucb1e) argued[0][1] that I was exaggerating the difficulties of reliably sending email but a year later in 2019, he confirmed the same difficulties! [2]

Do you see why we can't reliably extrapolate from personal experience?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15525505

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15526127

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19757607

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#74

Post by pera »

wpietri wrote: post #30
dpcan wrote: post #22

Then 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.

Agreed! I've been running my own mail server for 20+ years, and I would not recommend that anybody do this on a lark. Deliverability to GMail is a huge problem for me and has been for years. I even asked friends at Google to find out what the story was. All I got back is that the mail group was so careful/paranoid it wouldn't talk to them either. I would long ago have switched over to a vendor, but I use qmail-style…

I don't have any problems with Gmail, but there is no way to know why :)

As far as I know the most important factor for deliverability is your IP address: my /24 have been clean for many years because the network operator actually respond to abuse@ reports.

If you have problems my first advice (aside from checking that SPF+DKIM+DMARC+PTR+banner+etc... are OK) would be to find a better ISP.

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#75

Post by benbristow »

daffy wrote: post #55
benbristow wrote: post #3

Alternatively pay for a GSuite account for like £3 a month (Or Office 365) and all of this is handled for you with superior spam filtering, search, webmail, no manual administration and no issues with email delivery due to other filters thinking your server is a bit dodgy. It's too much effort to run your own email server well.

posteo.de is 1 euro/month

Looks good but doesn't seem to offer custom domain support

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#76

Post by rytis »

darkpicnic wrote: post #57
wpietri wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed! I've been running my own mail server for 20+ years, and I would not recommend that anybody do this on a lark. Deliverability to GMail is a huge problem for me and has been for years. I even asked friends at Google to find out what the story was. All I got back is that the mail group was so careful/paranoid it wouldn't talk to them either. I would long ago have switched over to a vendor, but I use qmail-style…

Fastmail allows this, if I’m understanding your need correctly. I’ve been using it for years.

You mean you can send emails to -@ and it'll be delivered to @ account (assuming MX for is pointing at fastmail)?

Is there anything you need to enable to allow this? I just tried, and the email got bounced back.

Or are you talking about email aliases? As in, you register -@ first before sending emails to that address?

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#77

Post by number6 »

pixelHD wrote: post #25
jjirsa wrote: post #11

EVERYONE did this for decades. Then EVERYONE stopped because it's awful. Modern ISPs don't like SMTP floating around, (DKIM, DMARC, SPF) are a pain to maintain over time, exploits will happen, and your free off-the-shelf virus and spam filters suck compared to the big companies seeing billions of messages per day.

I had my own mail server running for close to a year after which i gave up because i started seeing issues delivering mail to gmail and apple mail accounts. I had to keep tinkering with the DKIM/DMARC/SPF entries to make sure i'm compliant with gmail/outlook/etc. At somepoint i gave up because it wasn't worth the investment of time. FWIW, i used mail cow [0], which was a delight to setup and use. And it comes bundled…

Still running my mailcow. I don't care if people don't get my mail. I can show them that i handed the over to their server - everything else is their concern. At least legally. If you can't read my mail cause you misconfigured your spam filter I can't help.

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#78

Post by bluedino »

wpietri wrote: post #30
dpcan wrote: post #22

Then 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.

Agreed! I've been running my own mail server for 20+ years, and I would not recommend that anybody do this on a lark. Deliverability to GMail is a huge problem for me and has been for years. I even asked friends at Google to find out what the story was. All I got back is that the mail group was so careful/paranoid it wouldn't talk to them either. I would long ago have switched over to a vendor, but I use qmail-style…

That is such an overblown issue unless you're coming from a spammer network or trying to use something like a VPS to send mail.

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#79

Post by tenebrisalietum »

xwdv wrote: post #20

Although you can run your own mail server, it’s a bit like rolling your own crypto.

Not too much, unless you are completely new to server environments and networking.

You'll likely experience security breaches rolling your own crypto unless you are an expert in cryptology.

You'll also experience security breaches running your own email server if you also don't know what you're doing, but it's far easier to learn what it takes to configure an email server correctly from a security perspective than rolling your own crypto.

The bigger problems with running your own email server is NAT/CGNAT, ISP restrictions, and the fact that the big players will still ignore you due to only caring about the other big players.

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#80

Post by mxab »

wpietri wrote: post #30
dpcan wrote: post #22

Then 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.

Agreed! I've been running my own mail server for 20+ years, and I would not recommend that anybody do this on a lark. Deliverability to GMail is a huge problem for me and has been for years. I even asked friends at Google to find out what the story was. All I got back is that the mail group was so careful/paranoid it wouldn't talk to them either. I would long ago have switched over to a vendor, but I use qmail-style…

Check out uberspace.de. They are great and use qmail.
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