Ask HN: Do You Host Your Own Email? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Do You Host Your Own Email?

#81

Post by wankle » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

I run a small cheap public VPS (512 megs RAM) which only runs Wireguard. It takes the public ports and tunnels them to my home machine (2 Gig VM) running Ubuntu running postfix, dovecot, mysql (for users, domains, aliases), fully self-hosted over 20 years. That's for personal and some business. I run my own simple spam fighting service I wrote in plain Java and run it in Docker. The same 2 Gig VM also runs my multiple web sites all in Java. That same 2 Gig VM runs on KVM on an Ubuntu host.

I use Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo for stuff I don't really feel is personal but potentially important, useful or otherwise interesting.

Re: Ask HN: Do You Host Your Own Email?

#82

Post by 28304283409234 » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

Archelaos wrote: post #39

isnhp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and you still lost all of old email if you switch to another mail service right?

Use a provider that offers POP3 and download everything. This is what I do. My archive goes back to the last millennium.

How on earth does this get a downvote? Valid advice and on topic.

Re: Ask HN: Do You Host Your Own Email?

#83

Post by jeroenhd » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

Yes. VPS with Mailcow. Easy to set up and configure, even the DNS stuff. You do need a rather beefy VPS (6GB of RAM or so) if you want to enable mail indexing and antivirus, though, it's costing me about 8 euros a month for hosting (though I'm also using the server for other stuff so it's not just email) and about 12 euros a year for the domain.

Re: Ask HN: Do You Host Your Own Email?

#84

Post by ginja » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

I use G Suite nowadays, but I used to self-host up until a couple years ago. Mailcow is (or at least was) pretty nice and reliable: https://github.com/mailcow/mailcow-dockerized

Re: Ask HN: Do You Host Your Own Email?

#85

Post by lwhalen » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

Yup, OpenBSD + OpenSMTPD off a wholesaleinternet dedicated box, for roughly a dozen domains. Previously, Postfix and/or qmail.

If anyone's got any tips or contacts for getting off of Microsoft's (live.com, outlook.com, hotmail.com ,etc) blacklist, I'd be much obliged. Their webform for such matters goes nowhere, and postmaster@ goes unanswered. It apparently has to do with the ASN of my hosting provider, but I've been on the same IP for 6+ years now and have done nothing untoward with it.

Re: Ask HN: Do You Host Your Own Email?

#86

Post by habibur » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

Hosting my own for more than 10 years. Using a hosting provider's box. Postfix, dovecot, roundcube stack, and letsencrypt certs. Postfix is pretty solid. Install and forget.

First thing I do when moving to a new server is check whether the new box's IP is black listed in any mail-blacklist-dns service. If not, it's good.

What I have also found is that Gmail and other services are relatively forgiving on your server's IP, but marks mail as spam based on context and content.

Re: Ask HN: Do You Host Your Own Email?

#87

Post by betaby » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:12 PM UTC

Yes, since ~2008. Yes, sometimes mails go straight to google's 'spam' folder or I get cryptic bounces from MS. Once you have your SPF, DKIM and DNS RTR records it's mostly a smooth sailing. Yes, I'm totally fine with investing 2-4 hours per year troubleshooting delivery issues. I don't by argument "I'm paid $50/hour so I won't", I, in contrast, paid yearly+bonus and outside of 40 hours/week my time is 'free' and I'm OK to spend it on activities like maintaining my servers or preparing my own food or cleaning my own house.

Re: Ask HN: Do You Host Your Own Email?

#88

Post by ryangibb » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

I self host a mailserver on a hetzner VPS running NixOS using nixos-mailserver [0] (dovecot and postfix under the hood).

[0] https://gitlab.com/simple-nixos-mailserver/nixos-mailserver

Re: Ask HN: Do You Host Your Own Email?

#89

Post by seqizz » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

ryangibb wrote: post #88

I self host a mailserver on a hetzner VPS running NixOS using nixos-mailserver [0] (dovecot and postfix under the hood). [0] https://gitlab.com/simple-nixos-mailserver/nixos-mailserver

plus one. it's a breeze.

Re: Ask HN: Do You Host Your Own Email?

#90

Post by nottorp » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

Sorta. I run my own mail server for receiving but I send through google. Helps that I'm using only one email addy on my domain.

I've set up smtp servers for various projects with SPF DKIM etcaetera and they work (even Google accepts them) so it can still be done.

One day I'll do it for my own server ;)