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How to run your own mail server (2017)

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Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#111

Post by weaksauce »

donmcronald wrote: post #61
ransom1538 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. After many years, I think the algorithm is this: If the FROMs top level domain is in the top 500 websites OR is a .edu NOT SPAM, ELSE, send to "proprietary spam filter". The "proprietary spam filter" is some random crap code that is unique to each email server company. You could spend years trying to figure out how to game "proprietary spam filter" - but it is a fools errand.

I don't think so. I see @facebookmail.com in SPAM folders way more often than you'd expect on both Office 365 and GSuite. I also see mail from Microsoft and Google filtered into SPAM on their own platforms once in a while.

Is that a proper email from Facebook with all that entails or is it a email from a spoofer/scammer?

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#112

Post by icelancer »

garaetjjte wrote: post #84
pinjiz wrote: post #71

The key to get high delivery rates to GMail and Office 365 is to setup DMARC. When you have a proper DMARC configuration (and at least SPF) your delivery problems will suddenly go away. Hosting your own mail server is not rocket science, but you need to have solid sysadmin skills and a good understanding of email as a whole. If anyone is interested in doing this: Start simple with only Postfix and Dovecot, don't use…

DMARC is used for reporting and enforcing SPF/DKIM, I doubt it is used by anything as spam/ham signal.

It is. Check mail-tester.com for a decent checklist.

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#113

Post by XorNot »

wpietri wrote: post #30
dpcan wrote: post #22

Then you realize the true pain of having a near-zero reputation when trying to email anything to people on Gmail, Yahoo, Live, etc, etc. Expect to go to spam even if you have DKIM, SPF, and no relaying. If anyone actually knows the secret to not having your own mail-server's mail go to spam on these bigger systems, please tell, I've Googled it for years with no success.

Agreed! I've been running my own mail server for 20+ years, and I would not recommend that anybody do this on a lark. Deliverability to GMail is a huge problem for me and has been for years. I even asked friends at Google to find out what the story was. All I got back is that the mail group was so careful/paranoid it wouldn't talk to them either. I would long ago have switched over to a vendor, but I use qmail-style…

Wouldn't tagging only affect inbound mail? I would've thought a domain forwarder would work around this for migration?

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#114

Post by kej »

cosmojg wrote: post #56
starbugs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gandi.net doesn't support external domains. I'd be thankful for any recommendations that aren't totally overpriced and allow for external domains.

Personally, I use Migadu[1] for sending and receiving mail with my own domain. I've yet to find anything that provides more bang for my buck. [1] https://www.migadu.com/en/index.html

Thanks for this; pricing tiers based on outgoing email volume instead of number of domains or mailboxes is perfect for a lot of situations.

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#115

Post by the_angry_angel »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #109
the_angry_angel wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case you are very fortunate. I was running my own mail server for nearly 10 years on Hetzner. Prior to that on other hosts and in the distant past at home. Running mail servers is something I have done professionally and successfully. The last time I moved boxes as I had many times before. I was on clean IP range but I had no IP reputation at all. In the past this wasn’t such a problem, especially with SPF, D…

I wonder if there's some sort of relay setup that could be used to mitigate this: e.g. if you want to run your own mail server, sign up for some kind of "mail ring" that transparently proxies the (encrypted) traffic from all the member mailserver administrators. That way, your public IP has a higher volume and more leverage getting delivered.

Integration with SPF and would be unfun and probably even impractical (max 10 lookups iirc?). I’d also worry about the inevitable abuse which would appear to originate from your range(s). If you can mitigate those though, it sounds interesting

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#116

Post by big_chungus »

twobat wrote: post #21
jjirsa wrote: post #11

EVERYONE did this for decades. Then EVERYONE stopped because it's awful. Modern ISPs don't like SMTP floating around, (DKIM, DMARC, SPF) are a pain to maintain over time, exploits will happen, and your free off-the-shelf virus and spam filters suck compared to the big companies seeing billions of messages per day.

Most ISP don't care about it. But there are certain enterprises that know almost nothing about email, they employ "specialized tools" that scan and classify incoming email (read Symantec whatever) and make evereyone's lives harder.

I once got a nasty-gram from my ISP for running a mail server out of my house. Exceptionally low-traffic; two to three messages per week max.

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#117

Post by Aaronstotle »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #54
wpietri wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed! I've been running my own mail server for 20+ years, and I would not recommend that anybody do this on a lark. Deliverability to GMail is a huge problem for me and has been for years. I even asked friends at Google to find out what the story was. All I got back is that the mail group was so careful/paranoid it wouldn't talk to them either. I would long ago have switched over to a vendor, but I use qmail-style…

Funny. I'm somewhat new to the game but my email server has had very few problems delivering anywhere (hosting a small business' email, and personal email for the employees.) I've got spf, dkim, and dmarc. I use tls on everything. Got a static ip (linode) with rdns. I've never had a problem delivering to gmail. For a while i had problems delivering to Hotmail/outlook, but participating in some sort of junk mail repor…

Which mailserver are you using? I'd love to try hosting my own email.

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#118

Post by shirro »

dpcan wrote: post #22

Then you realize the true pain of having a near-zero reputation when trying to email anything to people on Gmail, Yahoo, Live, etc, etc. Expect to go to spam even if you have DKIM, SPF, and no relaying. If anyone actually knows the secret to not having your own mail-server's mail go to spam on these bigger systems, please tell, I've Googled it for years with no success.

The biggest problems for mail delivery across the board are probably lack of correct helo/reverse ip lookup and being on an IP blacklist such as being on an ISP dynamic address. I will bin those with my mail server as well. That is a very low bar but any naive mail server implementation on a home server is probably going to fail those instantly.

DKIM and SPF are really good signals to have. I have DKIM, SPF, DANE(nobody cares), DMARC, MTA-STS, TLS (lets encrypt) which are all potentially useful in preserving reputation and repudiating emails spoofing my domain sent from other sources.

I have never had issues getting throough to gmail. But for some mail systems, Microsoft in particular I think, they seem to penalise low volume mailers very heavily. You seem to need a certain volume for their systems to cache a reputation score and if you have a small vanity domain/mail server with very low mail volumes you may go straight to the spam folder.

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#119

Post by donmcronald »

weaksauce wrote: post #111
donmcronald wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. I see @facebookmail.com in SPAM folders way more often than you'd expect on both Office 365 and GSuite. I also see mail from Microsoft and Google filtered into SPAM on their own platforms once in a while.

Is that a proper email from Facebook with all that entails or is it a email from a spoofer/scammer?

It's completely legit. I think it's the domain Facebook uses for notifications.

https://imgur.com/a/nzkMNDS

Re: How to run your own mail server (2017)

#120

Post by blowski »

couchand wrote: post #26
blowski wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious rebuttal here is that not everyone is comfortable having a Google or Microsoft account, or having Google and Microsoft scanning their emails. In that case, Fastmail is a good alternative. It’s not quite as good as Gmail on security and anti-spam, but it’s much better on privacy.

Can you clarify what you mean by "security"? I've found Fastmail's spam filtering to be quite excellent: very few false positives (usually just non-spam marketing messages) and almost no false negatives.

Security - I think Fastmail is pretty good at security, but I don't think there's another firm on the planet that does as well at security as Google. Specifically, I found Fastmail's implementation of 2FA to be a bit lacking. I imagine that a determined attacker would find it easier to abuse their support processes, since Fastmail's support is quite helpful whereas Google barely even responds.

Spam filtering - I have both Gmail and Fastmail. I'd score Gmail 10/10 on spam preventing, and Fastmail at 8/10.

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