How to run your own mail server (2017) • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by dasil003 » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 12:52 AM UTC

jjav wrote: post #161

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.

There is no one secret you can google. There is also no need to perpetuate the fear of running your own email. Decentralization of core internet services helps us all, not just the person doing it. So to anyone seriously interested and willing to learn, I highly recommend running your own email servers. If you expect 100% delivery rate, you won't necessarily get that, no matter who is running your email infrastructur…

I’ve seen emails marked as suspicious/phishing attempt between two GSuite domains owned by the same company.

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

#182

Post by TMWNN » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 12:56 AM UTC

chheplo wrote: post #87

I have been using Mail-in-a-Box https://mailinabox.email/ successfully for many years now, for both my personal account and my company. The only problem is that occasionally Gmail and Outlook mark my sent email as SPAM to the receiver.

>The only problem is that occasionally Gmail and Outlook mark my sent email as SPAM to the receiver.

This is exactly the problem people are talking about!

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

#183

Post by kazinator » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 1:01 AM UTC

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.

> 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.

I've been running my own mail server without sending problems for almost a decade. Right from the beginning, I had a clue and knew that sending SMTP directly from a subscriber IP address was going to be a nonstarter. Such IP's have a negative reputation due to abuse. Instead, from the beginning, I used my ISP's (big ISP in Canada) SMTP forwarding host, configuring my SMTP server to log into that server with my credentials.

(I had a couple of hiccups along the way with the ISP's SMTP service, and they wouldn't help me unless I reproduced the issue with a supported e-mail client. Naturally, an Exim server running on Debian isn't a supported e-mail client, because it's name doesn't sound like "Microsoft Outlook" or "Mozilla Thunderbird").

Anyway, the main advantage of running your own mail server is not the ability to send SMTP directly to someone's MX server, but rather that you have your own MX domain for receiving mail, via a machine you control. Your setup isn't "lesser" in any way just because you're sending through a more reputable SMTP forwarding host.

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

#184

Post by shiftpgdn » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 1:07 AM UTC

zepearl wrote: post #170

perlgod wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I'm the author of TFA.) I have never had this issue. Generally the issue is either IP reputation of your server (common with VPS providers if you get a recycled IP of a previous spammer) or your domain name. Otherwise you are probably just unlucky enough to tickle the spam-prevention mechanisms in the almighty "algorithm" run by $BIGMAILER. I keep one "normie" email address at a $BIGMAILER for situations like this,…

My IP reputation is absolutely >>pure Still, usually when sending emails to Gmail & Hotmail my emails are "lost" (they don't even appear in the spam-inbox of the receivers). My usual workaround used to be to 1) login into my throwaway-account on their Gmail/Hotmail systems 2) send an email to my domain 3) reply to that email. After that usually my emails got accepted by those service providers, at least for a while.…

Is your domain name a .com? I've found that domains that are not .com domain names generally get flagged by the evil algorithim even if everything else is perfect.

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

#185

Post by zepearl » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 1:13 AM UTC

shiftpgdn wrote: post #184

zepearl wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My IP reputation is absolutely >>pure Still, usually when sending emails to Gmail & Hotmail my emails are "lost" (they don't even appear in the spam-inbox of the receivers). My usual workaround used to be to 1) login into my throwaway-account on their Gmail/Hotmail systems 2) send an email to my domain 3) reply to that email. After that usually my emails got accepted by those service providers, at least for a while.…

Is your domain name a .com? I've found that domains that are not .com domain names generally get flagged by the evil algorithim even if everything else is perfect.

Come on - nowadays most domains are non-".com"... .

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

#186

Post by shiftpgdn » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 1:20 AM UTC

zepearl wrote: post #185

shiftpgdn wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your domain name a .com? I've found that domains that are not .com domain names generally get flagged by the evil algorithim even if everything else is perfect.

Come on - nowadays most domains are non-".com"... .

That's not even remotely true. I've worked in cloud/web hosting for years and 99% of users are using .com domains. Yes more new users may be registering ccTLDs or gTLDs but that's generally because they're cheap. And because they're so cheap it creates a nuisance as spammers use them. Look a the .xyz tld. It gives you a hugely negative score on any sort of mailbox spam scoring algorithm.

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

#187

Post by Karunamon » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 1:27 AM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #62

johnchristopher wrote: post #47

There's something that isn't really clear to me: Would Google still suspect my mail of being spam If I bring my own domain to Gsuite or rackspace (for instance) ?

Not if you use Google's SMTP servers.

Judging from some of the experiences upthread, even that isn't enough. Billing messages from google themselves and gsuite-to-gsuite messages getting spammed.

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

#188

Post by jacobsenscott » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 1:28 AM UTC

Offlineimap + mu + mu4e is my current setup. I use gmail, but pull it all down with offlineimap. So it is all backed up even if I lose access to google. MU indexes your mail and gives you very fast search - much better than gmail's search. And mu4e lets you read your email in emacs.

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

#189

Post by linsomniac » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 1:30 AM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #183

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.

> 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. I've been running my own mail server without sending problems for almost a decade. Right from the beginning, I had a clue and knew that sending SMTP directly from a subscriber IP address was going to be a nonstarter. Such IP's have a negative reput…

So your recommendation to having your mail not go directly to spam is to run it for a decade? Got it! :-)

I run a mail server for a few thousand users that has been going for ~20 years, and have regularly had to spend significant time figuring out adjustments the big mail providers make along the way. Spending a day roughly every year figuring out and implementing countermeasures isn't that bad, when you get paid for it. But I really don't have the time to do it for my personal e-mail.

Your answer reminds me of something I heard a greenskeeper say about the big garden he maintains, I think in the UK: Tourists come to me all the time and ask "How can I get my lawn to look like this?" I reply: "The secret is to roll the dew off the lawn every morning." "That's it?" "Just do that for 300 years and your lawn will look like this."

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

#190

Post by kazinator » Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC

linsomniac wrote: post #189

kazinator wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I've been running my own mail server without sending problems for almost a decade. Right from the beginning, I had a clue and knew that sending SMTP directly from a subscriber IP address was going to be a nonstarter. Such IP's have a negative reput…

So your recommendation to having your mail not go directly to spam is to run it for a decade? Got it! :-) I run a mail server for a few thousand users that has been going for ~20 years, and have regularly had to spend significant time figuring out adjustments the big mail providers make along the way. Spending a day roughly every year figuring out and implementing countermeasures isn't that bad, when you get paid for…

If you have to do it for your personal mail compared to a few thousand users, the problems will obviously be fewer, because you don't send to as many different destinations as a crew of a few thousand users.

> "Just do that for 300 years and your lawn will look like this."

My point is that I've never had problems in that decade, not that it took a decade to fix. I think on two or three occasions, mail to a gmail user mysteriously bounced, but it went away on re-try.

I understood the reputation problem from the beginning instead of banging my head against it. Why I understood that is because I did some research into running mail servers before diving into it.