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Self-hosting email like it's 1984

maxadamski.com

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Re: Self-hosting email like it's 1984

#4

Post by andai »

iwontberude wrote: post #2

[flagged]

There was a blog posted to HN years ago describing a self hosted email setup in detail, and this was indeed the main issue. Everyone he emails is on a small number of big companies, and most of them don't like his server.

Edit:

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

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32715437

https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-...

Re: Self-hosting email like it's 1984

#5

Post by xmx98 »

iwontberude wrote: post #2

[flagged]

I do wonder about reliability. The only things I'm missing are the PTR record and reputation from what I gathered. Even if the mail server goes down, mail gets to me because email providers attempt to deliver again.

Anyway, I added a disclaimer at the top, so people don't treat this as a production ready setup.

Re: Self-hosting email like it's 1984

#6

Post by deadlyllama »

iwontberude wrote: post #2

[flagged]

I went back to self hosting when Google were going to kill free Gmail for your domain. I have no problems with deliberability. And I have tiny mail volumes.

Pre Gmail I was on Exim. Now I'm on Postfix. I used the 123qwe.com tutorial as a starting point.

The real problems are (1) family members just want Gmail and (2) I have to maintain an email system.

Re: Self-hosting email like it's 1984

#7

Post by abdullahkhalids »

Here is my advice to anyone wanting to test out self-hosting email. Start by using your self-hosted email to sign-up for accounts. You don't have to use the email address for your personal correspondence

Use Mail-in-a-box to get started [1]. You can literally set it up in a couple of hours by following the instructions and everything should just work.

After a few years, you can think about switching your personal correspondence to your new email.

[1] https://mailinabox.email./

Re: Self-hosting email like it's 1984

#8

Post by nickdothutton »

andai wrote: post #4
iwontberude wrote: post #2

[flagged]

There was a blog posted to HN years ago describing a self hosted email setup in detail, and this was indeed the main issue. Everyone he emails is on a small number of big companies, and most of them don't like his server. Edit: "After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32715437 https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-...

I remember reading this and being enraged for all of us.

Re: Self-hosting email like it's 1984

#9

Post by the_gipsy »

What about mail servers generally rejecting email (or marking as spam) from residential IP ranges? Decades of malware sending spam has spoiled self hosting emails.

I needed some minimal mail delivery for user registration confirmation and password recovery, and I finally caved and just use some free service. It's okay since those emails are really, really, sparse in my case. But it sucks that email, this one old and open technology, is not realistically self-hostable.

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