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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)

#121

Post by wolco »

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…

I still receive my own email but for sending I use a service or my isp. Unfortunately gmail only supports bigger players unless you get lucky.

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

#123

Post by sjustinas »

scarejunba wrote: post #24

Used to host my own everything. One day went on holiday, thing went down due to complex sequence of events, got no email. Disaster. From then on, MX'd my shit to aspmx.l.google.com. and called it a day. Any hosted solution is probably better than this.

I've been running my own email since about 8 months ago. I have Google's MX (that I used before) on backup (with a lower priority). Will not help me with every sort of fuckup possible, but it will at least deliver the mail if my server is down.

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

#124

Post by yabadabadoes »

dewey wrote: post #105
big_chungus wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly not getting blocked. Many sign-up fields will block foo+spam@bar.net if I try to use it.

I've ran into this issue maybe twice in years and I'm always using that for websites. I'm having a feeling that issue is a bit overblown.

I just add . in arbitrary places to distinguish sources. Since there's no telling what dots a gmail user thinks are a significant part of their address.. (plus I have seen fail and late enough to be a pain, but due to http parameter escaping, etc, rather than intentional fitering.)

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

#125

Post by tzs »

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.

Gmail has never been a problem for me, even when I only had SPF, sending from my server hosted at Rackspace. But I've had my domain for 20+ years, and Gmail since 2004, so they have had plenty of time to figure out its not a spam source, so this might not have been a fair test.

I just gave Yahoo a try, and that did go to spam, even though it was happy with both SPF and DKIM. I marked it as not spam, and then went and sent another. That went through fine.

I also tried Live. It says my SPF and DKIM are fine, but sends it to the spam box. I marked it as not spam. Nope. Next one still went to spam. Marked that as not spam and tried again. Still spam. Marked that as not spam, but didn't try sending another one yet. I'm going to wait a while, to allow for the possibility that it takes them a while to apply feedback.

I also tried comcast.net. Went through fine.

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

#126

Post by shirro »

rubyn00bie wrote: post #49

Kudos 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…

I don't understand people who try and cook 3 star michelin food at home. I would rather buy a kebab. But for any competent pro setting up a mail server is ridiculously easy. After the first few you have a recipe. Changes are incremental and relatively infrequent. It is much easier than keeping up with any programming ecosystem or framework.

I don't know that I like some of the deskilling I see. It seems like many people would rather learn a proprietary cloud api or use a prebuilt container than learn the fundamentals of setting up their own services.

A personal mail server, tested and refined over decades serves as a template that can be applied to other projects. If I have a web server backend that needs to send emails I have a pre-built and tested low maintenance solution I can deploy very quickly.

The main issue people will encounter is that you are at the mercy of a much bigger ecosystem where high volume senders have all the power and your good work implementing best practices is rarely rewarded. In the end your mail delivery is at the mercy of some shody unmaintained commercial abandonware spam solution maintained by someone who failed up and doesn't give a shit and has never read an RFC.

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

#127

Post by abecode »

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…

+1 about the opaqueness of gmails spam filters. I once had an email from a google recruiter (@google address) go to spam in gmail so at least it's somewhat egalitarian (that was 5+ years ago).

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

#129

Post by amelius »

tzs wrote: post #125
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.

Gmail has never been a problem for me, even when I only had SPF, sending from my server hosted at Rackspace. But I've had my domain for 20+ years, and Gmail since 2004, so they have had plenty of time to figure out its not a spam source, so this might not have been a fair test. I just gave Yahoo a try, and that did go to spam, even though it was happy with both SPF and DKIM. I marked it as not spam, and then went and…

Can't running your own email server be done through pulling a well-curated library on a daily basis?

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

#130

Post by jethro_tell »

mgalgs wrote: post #40
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…

Curious why you're so attached to the qmail style subaddressing. Personal preference or is there a technical advantage?

Probably because s/he has those addresses out there in the wild starting from a time that it was still reasonable to run an email server, so like 10+ years and probably a bit more.
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