Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

c0ffee.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 339 posts

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#101

Post by [deleted] »

mobweb wrote: post #82
mrb wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« The great thing is that I can dish out unique email address » That's the number one reason I would like to run my own server. (And, no, the Gmail trick of adding "+foo" to the username doesn't satisfy me because spammers know this trick and can strip it.)

Couldn't you just setup a domain with an email hosting provider and then turn on catch-all for that domain? For me I can just use any email @my-domain and it will be forwarded to my actual email address.

[deleted]

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#102

Post by sleavey »

mobweb wrote: post #82
mrb wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« The great thing is that I can dish out unique email address » That's the number one reason I would like to run my own server. (And, no, the Gmail trick of adding "+foo" to the username doesn't satisfy me because spammers know this trick and can strip it.)

Couldn't you just setup a domain with an email hosting provider and then turn on catch-all for that domain? For me I can just use any email @my-domain and it will be forwarded to my actual email address.

Yes, you can do that. But if you run your own server you can configure more complex filters to handle situations where mail is flagged - discard loudly (telling sender), discard silently, move to special folder if unsure of spamminess, let through.

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#103

Post by wila »

mrb wrote: post #59
sleavey wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run my own mail server, mostly for fun and to learn how it all works, but so far, after a few teething problems, it works pretty well. I don't have any critical services registered with addresses from this server; I use it for random websites (like Hacker News newsletters), cron job outputs on my server, Stack Exchange, etc., and as a way to back up my Gmail account remotely. The great thing is that I can dish out…

« The great thing is that I can dish out unique email address » That's the number one reason I would like to run my own server. (And, no, the Gmail trick of adding "+foo" to the username doesn't satisfy me because spammers know this trick and can strip it.)

Most decent ISPs let you create email forwarders. This is exactly what I use when signing up for a new service.

Quickly add a new forwarder and feed the service that email address instead of my normal address. When they turn out to be spammy, the forwarder gets removed.

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#105

Post by pwg »

brandon272 wrote: post #86
Yetanfou wrote: post #80

I've run my own mail server ever since I got something resembling broadband internet in 1996. Back then spam was non-existent, Sendmail was the emperor without clothes about to be dethroned and I hacked sendmail.cf without needing to look at the the bible [1]. I've never regretted running my own server, nor have I ever contemplated moving to a hosted solution. Spam is not a problem either, Spamassassin in combination…

What do you estimate has been your total investment of time in running your own mail server?

Not the OP, but I've been running my own email server since about the same time-frame (and it started life on a dual CPU Pentium 100Mhz box). Total time investment since circa 1998: estimated maybe 100-200 hours total (note, over an approximately 20 year span), and most of that was spent during the inevitable of reinstall new OS on current or newer box, then move config over portions of the process.

I've also always been on Postfix, which has always been way more secure than sendmail ever was at the time. And Postfix is also much easier to configure for the basic case of "send/receive email for a personal domain".

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#107

Post by corobo »

floren wrote: post #90
Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time a thread about running your own email server comes up I think "Oh yeah, I was going to set up FastMail for my domain" The current pricing[0] seems to let you have 100 domains plus 600 aliases[1] for $5/mo. I've got this thought that I will create aliases for every different thing I sign up for and use them to track who's selling my email address to who. I think that a domain plus aliases will do the trick…

So I can't quite parse it out from the page, maybe one of the Fastmail users can tell me. I can set up 100 domains and 600 aliases, but if I want my wife to have access to hername@mydomain.com, does she need her own $5/mo account?

> I can set up 100 domains and 600 aliases, but if I want my wife to have access to hername@mydomain.com, does she need her own $5/mo account?

You can add her as a user to your account (so she can use your domain) and it costs an additional $5/mo for the separate user yes

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#108

Post by Mister_Snuggles »

corobo wrote: post #98
Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time a thread about running your own email server comes up I think "Oh yeah, I was going to set up FastMail for my domain" The current pricing[0] seems to let you have 100 domains plus 600 aliases[1] for $5/mo. I've got this thought that I will create aliases for every different thing I sign up for and use them to track who's selling my email address to who. I think that a domain plus aliases will do the trick…

You can also set up catch-all addresses rather than manually setting up an alias per thing you sign up for https://www.fastmail.com/help/receive/alias-catchall.html

Oh, nice - that's even better!

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#109

Post by wila »

linsomniac wrote: post #39

How to run your own mail server: Don't. How to run your own mail server (for experts): Don't. I say this as someone who has run my own mail server for 20+ years. Now, if you absolutely have to get off Google, and the other available hosted options don't work for you, then this article looks like a good start. I'd add roundcube for web access and letsencrypt for SSL. One thing you'll never really get, in my experience…

But the spam handling you can actually buy. A spamexperts (to name just one alternative) inbound filter account for 1 domain costs about 1.5 dollar per month for an unlimited number of email boxes.

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#110

Post by lucb1e »

yosamino wrote: post #88
lucb1e wrote: post #25

> on FreeBSD using Postfix, Dovecot, Rspamd, and LDAP. That seems like an awful amount of work / overkill. This is not a good introduction for a normal geek, and die-hard open source fans will figure it out without too much trouble anyway. Postfix is not the best choice for novices, FreeBSD is not the most well-supported/documented system just because it's not as popular as some others, and a directory service should…

> Postfix is not the best choice for novices, I'll give you that in general, mail servers are not for novices, and they have a huge array of configuration options, but Postfix is by a wide margin the best piece of software that I've come across the last couple of years, and I've been using it for a long time because of that. It's reliable, it works exactly as documented, it's up to date, it's documentation is excelle…

> mail servers are not for novices

I invite you to look at hMailServer. I set this up when I had a reasonable clue about SMTP and only a vague understanding of POP3 or IMAP. Let alone how spam filters worked ("they look at words like viagra" was my understanding) or what mailing lists are.

It's really a Windows-like utility in the sense of next-next-next-finish. By now I despise most Windows Server wizards for not being flexible enough and prefer command line tools on GNU/Linux, but this mail server is one thing I just cannot find a good replacement for, and the interface provides everything I need (no need for command line or config file magic).

Post reply on HN