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A serverless email server on AWS using S3 and SES

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Re: A serverless email server on AWS using S3 and SES

#131

Post by oblib »

I dunno... I run my own email server and it feels to me like the giant gap in the ease of getting your own email server (or services) up and running that you can connect to a web app still hasn't closed much here, especially for me because I don't use AWS and I don't want to spend the time to learn.

My experience with 3rd party email services is they're also a pita to use and that can become huge when they merge or get bought up by a competing service or die, or raise their prices.

With the web browser we can configure very simple emails that they can send with a link to click via the user's email client but as a web app developer what I really need is to be able to send a html email that way.

Maybe web browser and email app makers could add a way to do that by letting apps request permissions and users approve it for a specific web app. That would really make life easier for me and my apps users.

Re: A serverless email server on AWS using S3 and SES

#132

Post by xdennis »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #36
GuB-42 wrote: post #22

A serverless server? It is a great illustration of how the term "serverless" has shifted from literally no server (ex: sqlite database) to "somebody else's computer".

> serverless server? This isn’t a contradiction. “Server” is an overloaded term and the “server” in “serverless” refers to a different meaning of “server” than the “email server” bit. “Serverless” means there is no physical or virtual hosts to manage, you just supply the request handler i.e., the email server . It's amusing because it sounds like a contradiction, but it's not one.

> “Serverless” means there is no physical or virtual hosts to manage

While true, that's not the defining characteristic of "Serverless" because PaaS also does not require server management.

Re: A serverless email server on AWS using S3 and SES

#133

Post by ionwake »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #65
ionwake wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I literally had one of the heads of a crucial flight system project loudly exclaim to me in front of the senior managers. "It's serverless - there is no server!" To which I honestly, just kept my mouth shut and stood aside.

To which I honestly, just kept my mouth shut and stood aside. I can never keep my mouth shut in these situations. Sometimes it leads to promotions, but I suspect it puts a ceiling on how high I can climb the corporate ladder.

I just figured there was some "short term" misunderstanding. As always I looked like an idiot but hey in a good place with good people youll all just move onto the next topic and know the details will work themselves out regardless who is right.

Re: A serverless email server on AWS using S3 and SES

#134

Post by awinder »

fooblat wrote: post #80
awinder wrote: post #74

This is awesome & I totally intend to play with it :D Do you have any plans / any ideas on feasibility to plop an imap server on top of the s3 store? I have really wanted a serverless aws solution and this moves the needle on work I did not wanna do so I’m reinterested again. Something like an s3 object change -> dynamodb index might work well for latency concerns and keep the serverless spirit alive. I just have suc…

At that point why not use Amazon WorkMail[0]? Then you don't have to maintain anything at all. 0. https://aws.amazon.com/workmail/

Uh because I didn’t know workmail came out, thank you kind human.

Re: A serverless email server on AWS using S3 and SES

#135

Post by philliphaydon »

edoceo wrote: post #69
philliphaydon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They shouldn’t. Most ISP email providers don’t support more than 10mb.

gmail is 25MB, yandex is 30MB.

?!? I said ISP emails, which a lot of people still use. Outlook/Hotmail are 10mb though. And outlook client is 20mb received.

Re: A serverless email server on AWS using S3 and SES

#136

Post by lisper »

This is a very misleading title. It is not serverless. It uses SES which stands for Simple Email Service, which is provided by (of course) servers. It's just that they are servers that Amazon maintains for you. It is no more "serverless" than any other hosted email provider.

This is not to say that this is without value. Having your emails end up in an S3 bucket is tremendously handy. But it's not serverless.

Re: A serverless email server on AWS using S3 and SES

#137

Post by Diederich »

lisper wrote: post #136

This is a very misleading title. It is not serverless. It uses SES which stands for Simple Email Service, which is provided by (of course) servers. It's just that they are servers that Amazon maintains for you. It is no more "serverless" than any other hosted email provider. This is not to say that this is without value. Having your emails end up in an S3 bucket is tremendously handy. But it's not serverless.

The word 'serverless' is certainly a bit misleading.

By your definition, is there any possible architecture that is truly 'serverless'?

Re: A serverless email server on AWS using S3 and SES

#138

Post by throwaway667555 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #22

A serverless server? It is a great illustration of how the term "serverless" has shifted from literally no server (ex: sqlite database) to "somebody else's computer".

This argument is so tiring... if we all agreed to change the word “serverless” to idk “xirverous” it would have a pretty clear meaning and clear distinctions from “server” and “local to the machine”. Xirverous technologies are an innovative, new, unique, and interrelated class of technologies. Thank you for your consideration.

Re: A serverless email server on AWS using S3 and SES

#139

Post by ttul »

r2d2klapa wrote: post #116

This is great. I tried a similar approach but couldn't use it as a transactional email server because of this (taken from OP's readme): > By default, you can't send emails to unverified addresses. If you'd like to be able to send (as opposed to just receiving), you'll need to reach out to AWS to remove this limitation from your account. I reached out AWS to remove this limitation but they refused my request 3 times c…

AWS is not wrong. The instant that you stand up a service that allows anyone to send email, spammers will take advantage of it and spam the world. This ruins your reputation and you get blocked everywhere.

Re: A serverless email server on AWS using S3 and SES

#140

Post by lisper »

Diederich wrote: post #137
lisper wrote: post #136

This is a very misleading title. It is not serverless. It uses SES which stands for Simple Email Service, which is provided by (of course) servers. It's just that they are servers that Amazon maintains for you. It is no more "serverless" than any other hosted email provider. This is not to say that this is without value. Having your emails end up in an S3 bucket is tremendously handy. But it's not serverless.

The word 'serverless' is certainly a bit misleading. By your definition, is there any possible architecture that is truly 'serverless'?

That depends on what you mean. If you mean, "Is it possible to have SMTP without a server?" the answer is no, by definition. SMTP is a client-server protocol. The same is true of IMAP and POP.

If you mean, "Is it possible to have something that has an email-like UI/UX without a server" the answer is yes. But it won't interoperate with what we call email today, because that is fundamentally based on SMTP.

In fact, the original email was serverless because it only worked on a single machine. That protocol is actually still in use today. Cron jobs error logging message of last resort is to send email to root@localhost, which is done without any networking at all.

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