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Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

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Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#431

Post by gerdesj »

Minimum requirements: Static IP(s) DNS - A and PTR DNS - MX DNS - SPF

Nice to have: DKIM DMARC

Get all that in line and it should work fine here. I run quite a lot of email systems. I run them in the UK and not Canada or anywhere else so can't comment broadly.

I've been doing this for 25 years now, so I think I have a fair handle on how email works.

You can stuff your artisans up your arse. Email is email - do it right or fuck off.

[EDIT: I give up, I can't remember how to format a list on HN and I can't be arsed anymore - I created two lists above - they should be fairly obvious and each one has a heading followed by a colon]

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#432

Post by baobabKoodaa »

eps wrote: post #420
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you put some decent effort [...] it works Well, I put in more than some decent effort, and I didn't get it "to work". I detailed my efforts here: https://www.attejuvonen.fi/dont-send-email-from-your-own-ser... Please stop spreading falsehoods. If you were able to somehow get your own email server to deliver email to Gmail and Outlook, great, good for you - but stop pretending that anybody can do it.

Easy on generalizations, mate. I've been running my own mail server since mid '00s. Initially hosted with one of West coast Canadian colos and subsequently moved to an EU colo. Had some deliverability issues with Outlook and Yahoo, but these were episodic and rare even though I set up DKIM only last year and have been running with just SPF and DNS/PTR before that. I know at least a dozen of others with similar setups…

> Easy on generalizations, mate

What did I generalize, exactly? Parent poster was claiming that anybody can set up a mail server with good deliverability - that's a generalization. I said good for them (acknowledging they managed to make it work) and said that I also tried and couldn't make it work - therefore, clearly not everybody can make it work. Did I not argue against generalization there?

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#433

Post by saltminer »

fareesh wrote: post #425
feanaro wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's just because you're presenting it completely incorrectly. It's their system that is misclassifying their email, not you being on a "hipster" email system, whatever that means. At no point is it your system's fault so don't even begin to start phrasing it as such.

Non-technical folks will just tell you that they don't have this problem with anyone else, and will likely get more annoyed when you present it that way. Since it's 2021, depending on which part of the world you are in, you may even be accused of "gaslighting".

Especially since some systems will just silently drop messages that seem "too spammy" instead of just sending them to the spam box.

From your perspective, your email was delivered successfully.

But to the recipient, you claim to have sent an email that is nowhere to be found in their inbox or spam folder, and if they contacted IT (keep in mind that 90% of people won't even bother doing this much), they'd say it was never received - why should they believe you?

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#434

Post by XorNot »

codazoda wrote: post #193
tzs wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see something to make it easy to address the case where you are doing #1, but your provider does unilaterally kick you off with short notice for some reason. The email equivalent of a bug out bag [1]. This would be something that provides in a single package an SMTP server, an IMAP and POP server, pre-trained spam filtering, and maybe a web server with a web-based email client, and a simple setup program…

I use a domain, registered at Namecheap, and I forward to my gmail account. If gmail “goes away” I simply configure my email to forward elsewhere. If I’m unhappy with Namecheap forwarding, I point my DNS at another forwarding provider. If I’m unhappy with Namecheap, I transfer my domain to another provider. It gives me all the flexibility I need with almost no work or maintenance. There are enough mail providers that…

I used to do this but found every now and again I'd get multi-minute long delays before gmail picked it up. I've since moved to paying for Google Workspace to host my email (eventually hoping I'll move to something cheaper).

The goal is to get my personal domain to be my email domain for exactly this reason.

For my soon-to-be-born son, I'm registering him a personal domain immediately, and I'll turn it over to him when he's old enough to have email - save him some trouble.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#435

Post by mekster »

gerdesj wrote: post #431

Minimum requirements: Static IP(s) DNS - A and PTR DNS - MX DNS - SPF Nice to have: DKIM DMARC Get all that in line and it should work fine here. I run quite a lot of email systems. I run them in the UK and not Canada or anywhere else so can't comment broadly. I've been doing this for 25 years now, so I think I have a fair handle on how email works. You can stuff your artisans up your arse. Email is email - do it rig…

It's only probably your domains already have enough reputations.

I don't think you understand the complexity of having your emails marked as spams on newer domains.

I've also been running my domain email for 15 years or so and configurations are easy but I still rely on external delivery services just so I get less chance of being flagged as spam.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#436

Post by gerdesj »

mekster wrote: post #435
gerdesj wrote: post #431

Minimum requirements: Static IP(s) DNS - A and PTR DNS - MX DNS - SPF Nice to have: DKIM DMARC Get all that in line and it should work fine here. I run quite a lot of email systems. I run them in the UK and not Canada or anywhere else so can't comment broadly. I've been doing this for 25 years now, so I think I have a fair handle on how email works. You can stuff your artisans up your arse. Email is email - do it rig…

It's only probably your domains already have enough reputations. I don't think you understand the complexity of having your emails marked as spams on newer domains. I've also been running my domain email for 15 years or so and configurations are easy but I still rely on external delivery services just so I get less chance of being flagged as spam.

"I don't think you understand the complexity of having your emails marked as spams on newer domains."

I've been doing email for 25 years (not 15), I have a few ideas about how it works.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#437

Post by mrobot »

simple-nixos-mailserver is a really nice way to get up and running. Postfix/dovecot/rspamd/autocerts+renew/clamav/dkim/managesieve

Super easy to set up and nothing in the article will be a problem. Your system will not be "artisanal". 400 people wasting time commenting on this guys dumb article.

https://gitlab.com/simple-nixos-mailserver/nixos-mailserver

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#438

Post by mekster »

Jenda_ wrote: post #428
fareesh wrote: post #344

If I have business outcomes that are dependent on people receiving my emails, it's difficult for me to be in a situation where the other person may need to, at some point, be told that they aren't getting my emails because I'm on some kind of "hipster email system" which they are no doubt going to perceive it to be. They're probably going to wonder why they are wasting their time with me when I can't even get somethi…

I see it the opposite way. I send a business email, it does not arrive, or it arrives after 20 minutes. When using the company's gmail, I cannot get any diagnostics - is it stuck somewhere in the queue? on their side, on our side? is it being greylisted? when will the server retry and the greylisting will allow the email to pass? is the target mailbox full? was there a TLS problem with the primary MX server and the b…

Point is Gmail etc would work without you being a Unix admin. I didn't know emails in and out of Gmail get stuck so often.

Besides, there's a bounce email that describes errors.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#439

Post by layer8 »

FemmeAndroid wrote: post #388
iamtheworstdev wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you would be surprised, how many sites sell email addresses to others, and I know it as every one gets its own email address. So much this. I've actually contacted companies to tell them they've been compromised because I started getting phishing emails. I quit after the third time of reporting it and being told "we haven't been hacked, someone in your friends group has and you just can't read email headers"..…

It's funny to hear this experience. I've been doing this consistently for about 5 years now and have noticed 2 instances where this occurred, and in both there were prior disclosures about a security failure. I tend to sign up for a lot of things (I'm seeing over 150 unique email addresses I receive emails from using this scheme), but I guess I'm just getting lucky. Also, just out of curiosity, where does one sell em…

Not the GP, but I’m experiencing this mostly with small to mid-sized online retailers.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#440

Post by atum47 »

tommek4077 wrote: post #361
atum47 wrote: post #357

I'm a well versed software engineer and even I had trouble setting up my email. After a while I realized it was not worthed, so I keep using Gmail, hoping I don't violate any of their policies or get tangled in the algorithm. As I see here, it's a hard thing to recover once this go wrong with big tech.

So you are just not that well versed as you thought you are.

That's fair
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