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Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack

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Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack

#91

Post by r00fus »

rsync wrote: post #15
morsch wrote: post #9

Very nice. Comes with Roundcube so you've got a webmail client available. - DKIM signing on outgoing messages (opendkim). - The machine acts as its own DNS server and is automatically configured for SPF and DKIM (nsd). I remember many people running their own SMTP server used to have massive issues with their outgoing mail being silently or non-silently ignored or sent to the spam folder. Does this take care of this?…

I don't remember this ... can you elaborate ? Are you speaking of people who failed to disable relaying ?

Reliably delivering email in todays spam-filled environment isn't guaranteed.

Players like MailGun, SendGrid and Postmark provide such features as part of a EaaS product.

Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack

#92

Post by danieltillett »

Niten wrote: post #52
morsch wrote: post #9

Very nice. Comes with Roundcube so you've got a webmail client available. - DKIM signing on outgoing messages (opendkim). - The machine acts as its own DNS server and is automatically configured for SPF and DKIM (nsd). I remember many people running their own SMTP server used to have massive issues with their outgoing mail being silently or non-silently ignored or sent to the spam folder. Does this take care of this?…

> I remember many people running their own SMTP server used to have massive issues with their outgoing mail being silently or non-silently ignored or sent to the spam folder. Does this take care of this? "Mostly" really isn't good enough. Frankly I've had mixed results over several years of hosting my own personal email server, even with a valid PTR, SPF, and DKIM. Most SMB and personal email systems I interact with…

I have exactly this problem with hotmail and outlook email accounts. I have spent years trying to solve this problem without much success.

Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack

#93

Post by danieltillett »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #64
Niten wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember many people running their own SMTP server used to have massive issues with their outgoing mail being silently or non-silently ignored or sent to the spam folder. Does this take care of this? "Mostly" really isn't good enough. Frankly I've had mixed results over several years of hosting my own personal email server, even with a valid PTR, SPF, and DKIM. Most SMB and personal email systems I interact with…

I was suffering the same problem about 7 years ago on my own personal mail server. I discovered that if I padded out the message headers with a load of junk headers to push the message size up beyond about 50KB, then the otherwise exact same message would arrive in the Inbox at Hotmail rather than being blackholed. https://lists.exim.org/lurker/message/20070614.130838.42d1bd... I haven't done this for many years thou…

I am going to try this out and see if it still works. If it does I will be sacrificing a goat in your honour when the next full moon comes around :)

Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack

#94

Post by mpnordland »

robomartin wrote: post #47
thisishugo wrote: post #16

It remains a constant frustration to me that Postfix, Exim, Cyrus, Dovecot and the like still feel as if they belong very much in the "here be dragons" territories of the Unix world. Configuring these systems is an exercise in constant frustration and bafflement. They're such a pain to use that since becoming the sysadmin in charge of our work email servers, I gave up running personal ones as well and just pay FastMa…

At some level I've always viewed this as an example of how FOSS can fail to deliver good products at times. It should be embarrassing to the FOSS community that something as fundamental as email services requires super human effort to setup, administer and maintain. I don't know how it is we got here. It's a real head shaker.

Well, I'm no super admin, but my mail server's been humming along fine for several months now, without needing intervention except for heartbleed.

Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack

#95

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

miles_matthias wrote: post #40

This is nice if your main goal is to take privacy back. For me, Gmail is not only free, but provides great mobile apps and email innovation like filtering, search, and a tabbed inbox. In short, Gmail provides more value to me than being a simple SMTP server, so I'm willing to pay with my advertising eyes.

Unfortunately, you are also paying with my privacy (assuming I were to send you an email).

Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack

#96

Post by mike-cardwell »

danieltillett wrote: post #93
mike-cardwell wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was suffering the same problem about 7 years ago on my own personal mail server. I discovered that if I padded out the message headers with a load of junk headers to push the message size up beyond about 50KB, then the otherwise exact same message would arrive in the Inbox at Hotmail rather than being blackholed. https://lists.exim.org/lurker/message/20070614.130838.42d1bd... I haven't done this for many years thou…

I am going to try this out and see if it still works. If it does I will be sacrificing a goat in your honour when the next full moon comes around :)

If it still works, please prod me via the contact details in my profile. Would love to find out it still does :)

Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack

#97

Post by danieltillett »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #96
danieltillett wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am going to try this out and see if it still works. If it does I will be sacrificing a goat in your honour when the next full moon comes around :)

If it still works, please prod me via the contact details in my profile. Would love to find out it still does :)

I will. One thing I can add is Microsoft hates the word PayPal - mention paypay in your email and it gets killed, take out that one word and it goes straight through.

Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack

#99

Post by josho »

clarry wrote: post #56
josho wrote: post #43

Even better is to host your personal email on a server at your home. SMTP will retry sending mail if your server goes down for a period, so uptime isn't critical. I've been doing this for several months with no issues, and it's pleasant getting out of google's targeted profiles.

I wish more protocols were built with such robustness and decenteralization in mind. If you try to host a web site at home and it gains some attention among netizens, you might have a bad day. Not because your connection is dog slow, but because all those people will complain about the way you host. The internet is too darn centeralized, people can't just put services out there.

I often feel the same about how centralized the 'net has become. Two issues that seem to make it worse:

1. ISPs providing asymmetric service (and it's been getting worse, it used to be 10:1 dl:ul, but when I upgraded speed last year it grew to 20:1).

2. Why do we have a plethora of centralized services, when ideally a smart firmware in your home router can handle pages like about.me or simple blogs.

Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack

#100

Post by ClashTheBunny »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #35

This is cool, but it doesn't actually help you with mass surveillance unless the other side of your conversation is doing that too. What point running your own email server if your friend is on hotmail? Also, even if you both run your own MTAs STARTTLS does not help much except to reduce the scope of the passive-only surveillance dragnet, because the configuration does not require signed certificates. Finally, if bot…

In this situation, you are the one who gets the national security letter or warrant. Also, it requires a warrant because it's on your personal property. They don't need a warrant to search your ISP.
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