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After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel

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Re: After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel

#91

Post by reuven »

Yeah, I ran my own e-mail server from 1995 until about 10 years ago. It used to be fairly simple, but between incoming spam and attacks, the various standards that were developed, and my e-mail not getting through... this became a problem that was worth paying someone a few dollars a month to solve for me.

I still use my own domain, but I'll let actual delivery and security experts deal with the day-to-day running of things, while I run my business (which definitely isn't that).

It was a bit sad to give up, but the time and frustration it saved have been more than worthwhile.

Re: After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel

#92

Post by johnklos »

electric_mayhem wrote: post #24

The fix here is use a commercial provider for outbound smtp but continue to self-host inbound. Not ideal, but it works.

Actually, smarthosting is precisely ideal for deliverability problems, particularly with IP reputation that can't be fixed.

Re: After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel

#94

Post by usefulcat »

kro wrote: post #67
usefulcat wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've been doing exactly this for over 20 years. The only problem I can recall is related to the fact that the hosting provider uses a single SSL cert for the machine that hosts my domain (and many others, presumably), so of course the cert doesn't match my domain name. It's pretty easy to work around, and I only have to deal with it every few years when they do a hardware upgrade, which sometimes means moving m…

The MX servers cert in my experience does not need to include your email domain name .

I believe you're correct. I should clarify that the SSL cert problems I have are only related to my client connecting to the server to send or receive messages.

Re: After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel

#96

Post by johnklos »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #68
zh3 wrote: post #34

Hosting an email server on a consumer IP does seem to a losing proposition, Hosting an email server on a cheap (reputable) cloud server and doing the basics (PTR records, SPF etc) still works well.

How do you know? SMTP wasn't designed for reliable delivery. You don't know if your emails are being received, and even i they are, you don't know if they'll be received tomorrow.

If you're not getting bounces, then the receiving email servers are not RFC-compliant.

If you're really that worried about it, smarthost.

Re: After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel

#97

Post by [deleted] »

ShowalkKama wrote: post #77

>I implemented all the acronyms, secured antispam measures, verified my domain, made sure my server is neither breached nor used to relay actual spam, added new servers with supposedly clean IPs from reputable providers, tried all the silver bullets recommended by Hacker News, used kafkaesque request forms to prove legitimity, contacted the admins of some blacklists. I cloned a repo, edited two lines in a yaml file,…

[deleted]

Re: After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel

#98

Post by nine_k »

ShowalkKama wrote: post #77

>I implemented all the acronyms, secured antispam measures, verified my domain, made sure my server is neither breached nor used to relay actual spam, added new servers with supposedly clean IPs from reputable providers, tried all the silver bullets recommended by Hacker News, used kafkaesque request forms to prove legitimity, contacted the admins of some blacklists. I cloned a repo, edited two lines in a yaml file,…

IP addresses and whole address blocks may have a bad karma: if somebody ever sent spam from them, they may be marked as untrusted in various databases, and unblocking them is pretty hard. The filters prefer to err on the side of mis-marking a few legitimate self-hosted emails, instead of passing a spam salvo.

Decentralized trust is still hard.

Re: After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel

#99

Post by johnklos »

noncoml wrote: post #39

Forget about self hosting. Even a custom domain is a pain sometimes. According to a lot of web apps, my email is not valid and can’t use it. Also I have been told by a customer support person that my email is not right as it has to end with gmail.com

The fact that it's too hard for you doesn't mean it's too hard for everyone else.

Re: After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel

#100

Post by zh3 »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #68
zh3 wrote: post #34

Hosting an email server on a consumer IP does seem to a losing proposition, Hosting an email server on a cheap (reputable) cloud server and doing the basics (PTR records, SPF etc) still works well.

How do you know? SMTP wasn't designed for reliable delivery. You don't know if your emails are being received, and even i they are, you don't know if they'll be received tomorrow.

Statistically. I communicate with a lot of people via email, and if I don't get an expected response to something of consequence I follow up - it's far more common the recipient simply missed it/didn't get around to it than it is to get "I never got it/I found it in my spam folder".
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