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Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

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Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#21

Post by jraph »

bombcar wrote: post #8
postmanpat wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall Litestream citing a ~3s streaming replication lag. What replication lag could tar-on-a-cronjob reasonably achieve for a moderate 5GB mail store? Even tar'ing isn't trivial: I've seen casing of people having missed preserving file permissions, making restoration difficult.

At 5G size you could do something with ZFS and tons of snapshots and zfs send.

I'd go with rsync for the transfer (+ zfs/btrfs snapshots on the receiving side to keep incremental backups)

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#22

Post by the_duke »

I've been using maddy as a personal and business email server for a while.

Resource consumption is basically zero, no problems with sending or receiving emails at all.

It did take me quite a few hours to properly set up a Kubernetes + Terraform config though. Getting all the bits and pieces for DKIM, SPF, DMARC right, including issuing certs via cert-manager, is quite finicky.

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#23

Post by KronisLV »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #10

Unrelated but: what VPS hosts are reliable for email? I've had trouble with Linode being blocked in the past. I'm aware Google Cloud blocks port 25. I haven't tried EC2 but I assume the worst.

Currently using Time4VPS with no issues so far: https://www.time4vps.com/?affid=5294 (affiliate link, personally i find it to be an affordable VPS host that i've used for years and host most of my stuff on).

However, i'd say that it's less of a matter of choosing a VPS host and more one of making sure that the IP addresses that you get are not in any blacklists. This seems like a good starting point for those sorts of checks: https://dnschecker.org/ip-blacklist-checker.php Or maybe this: https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx

I think the actual question would be: "Which VPS hosts have the least blacklisted IP addresses for hosting mail servers?" But i'm afraid that i cannot answer that one, because after a brief search i could not find any articles, which would check the IP blocks owned by different hosts and what percentage of them are in blacklists, which would probably be a large undertaking.

Until then, most of the answers will probably be subjective, along the lines of: "I use $HOST without many problems." (like my answer above, though even then someone could get a blacklisted IP address and their answer would be the exact opposite to mine).

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#24

Post by papaf »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #10

Unrelated but: what VPS hosts are reliable for email? I've had trouble with Linode being blocked in the past. I'm aware Google Cloud blocks port 25. I haven't tried EC2 but I assume the worst.

what VPS hosts are reliable for email?

I've not had problems with Hetzner and Scaleway. Before that I used to host email on random vendors I saw on Low End Box[1] and never had problems.

[1] https://lowendbox.com/

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#25

Post by sildur »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #10

Unrelated but: what VPS hosts are reliable for email? I've had trouble with Linode being blocked in the past. I'm aware Google Cloud blocks port 25. I haven't tried EC2 but I assume the worst.

I got good results with Hetzner. But it takes some time to set up a server that complies with all of Google requirements. Also, I once inherited a spammy IP address and took me some time to remove it from spam databases.

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#26

Post by 3np »

aetherspawn wrote: post #16
figbert wrote: post #7

I've been using Maddy now for about a month for my email, and it's incredible. The dev says it's not caddy for email – but in my experience, it's certainly been that easy. I've got to write a longer article about this, but self-hosting email is incredibly liberating. I now own my entire digital identity. I can work on open source projects with developers around the world completely while relying only on my own capabi…

How did you get around deliverability issues?

From someone else with similar experience: I've been following all best practices to the best of my abilities (rDNS/DMARC/DKIM/SPF/etc). After all that was properly in place, the only problematic receiver was Microsoft (outlook.com/hotmail.com/live.com), which bounced and provided an appeal process.

I filled the form, was requested documentation from my ISP on the IP address.

I asked my VPS hosting company (since they provide the public IP and therefore act as ISP) and they proactively reached out to Microsoft, who lifted the restriction after that.

So since then no delivery issues. YMMV.

If you intend to host this from your residential address, it can be a good idea to tunnel external traffic over VPN through a VPS or similar. Not only for privacy reasons, but also to get around ISP blocks and IP banlists. I don't know how flexible maddy is, but in postfix in case the above scenario wouldn't be resolved, I could have set to use mailgun/mailroute for MS domains only and relay like normally for others.

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#27

Post by 3np »

ta1234567890 wrote: post #12
figbert wrote: post #7

I've been using Maddy now for about a month for my email, and it's incredible. The dev says it's not caddy for email – but in my experience, it's certainly been that easy. I've got to write a longer article about this, but self-hosting email is incredibly liberating. I now own my entire digital identity. I can work on open source projects with developers around the world completely while relying only on my own capabi…

What hosting service do you recommend to run it on?

Vultr, Linode, Njalla, Hetzner, Scaleway

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#28

Post by 3np »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #10

Unrelated but: what VPS hosts are reliable for email? I've had trouble with Linode being blocked in the past. I'm aware Google Cloud blocks port 25. I haven't tried EC2 but I assume the worst.

VPS providers generally (don't know about GCP) lift port restrictions if you write them and request it explicitly.

At least Vultr and Linode will also communicate with other big providers (e.g. Gmail or Outlook.com) in case you have delivery issues due to history of the IP addressor subnet before you took it over.

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#29

Post by papaf »

sildur wrote: post #25
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #10

Unrelated but: what VPS hosts are reliable for email? I've had trouble with Linode being blocked in the past. I'm aware Google Cloud blocks port 25. I haven't tried EC2 but I assume the worst.

I got good results with Hetzner. But it takes some time to set up a server that complies with all of Google requirements. Also, I once inherited a spammy IP address and took me some time to remove it from spam databases.

Thats a good point about IP addresses.

I think the advantage with Hetzner cloud is that you rent the IP address separately. If you get an IP with a bad reputation you can stop renting it and get a new one.

Edit: I have not actually tried changing the IP, its just an idea. Also, I hope the spammers don't start doing this and spoil it for everyone else.

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#30

Post by dheera »

figbert wrote: post #7

I've been using Maddy now for about a month for my email, and it's incredible. The dev says it's not caddy for email – but in my experience, it's certainly been that easy. I've got to write a longer article about this, but self-hosting email is incredibly liberating. I now own my entire digital identity. I can work on open source projects with developers around the world completely while relying only on my own capabi…

Is there some sort of web interface for self-hosted e-mail that is reasonably good and sleek/modern-looking like Gmail, and also works well on mobile with swipe gestures and everything?
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