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Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#191

Post by mgbmtl »

djsumdog wrote: post #102
mrb wrote: post #88

One little trick that I rarely see mentioned for working around the negative or neutral reputation your MTA's IP might have is that you can route your outgoing emails through another MTA that has a higher reputation. For example route them through smtp.gmail.com (or for other options see https://support.google.com/a/answer/176600?hl=en ). It does not mean you have to use Gmail. It does not mean you have to change you…

Huh..never thought of this. I run my own e-mail server on a Linode. I have constant trouble not being classified as spam. I did a whole post on it: http://penguindreams.org/blog/how-google-and-microsoft-made-... The sad reality is, I'm thinking of moving my e-mail back to someone else. It might be Fastmail, might be Amazon. Running my own e-mail server is a pain and I hate having to send people a message on Facebook…

Silly question, but have you tried sending an email to someone running spam-assassin and check the headers of the received mail to see if there's anything obvious flagging you? For example, on Linode make sure that your reverse DNS for IPv6 are also set correctly.

I find it hard to believe that you get classified as spam for no good reason, unless perhaps that Linode / Digital Ocean are known for hosting so much garbage and people can be tempted to outright block them, but I doubt Gmail does that?

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#192

Post by bbunix »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #171
reallyimran wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something you can do to install that : https://mailinabox.email/

That attempt at the problem looks pretty nice. Thanks for sharing it.

Mail in a box works great... replaced my old sendmail setup - using an external DNS is a bit funky, but a great package.. support multiple domains easily, pop3/imap and web client. Recommend.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#193

Post by loup-vaillant »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #188
loup-vaillant wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My best advice is to choose a reputable host. This sucks big time. We should be able to send email from fucking home , not beg an external, bigger guy to either do it for us (one's ISP, google…), or lend us a machine so we can do it from there (Amazon, OVH…). Email providing is so concentrated right now it is starting so show signs of network effects —just like more recent (anti)social networks. This is not right.

We should be able to send spam from home. But if we can send email from random dynamic IP addresses, so can spammers. And spammers do. I run an MTA (postfix) on a couple of Linodes and I get more hacky spam-wannabe traffic than I get actual mail. Postfix is configured to kill it all, so I never see any of it. But the logs are spam carnage. My domains are hardly famous, so if you're running a high profile site I can i…

What I mean is, the originating IP address should not be such an overwhelming criterion of spamminess. When I receive spam, my most important criterion for filtering it is pure content.

I have a hard time believing spam is such a huge problem we have to use simplistic filters such as IP bans to deal with them. My email address is written without obfuscation in the open web (my own website), and my email clients' filters (Thunderbird or Evolution, depending) are more than enough once I have trained them a little.

(My domain is probably even less famous, but I do receive cold, non-spammy email from time to time regarding my blog articles.)

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#194

Post by loup-vaillant »

havetocharge wrote: post #181
loup-vaillant wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, so cost is the reason why the won't let the email through at all… All those people who mistakenly think email is free… (even gmail is not free: you pay for it by letting them spy on you and sending you targeted ads).

Heh. You might be overestimating your own importance.

Huh? What makes you say that? This is not about me, this is about everyone getting spied on, and about anyone wanting to keep emails decentralised —which by the way has some import for everyone, not just computer geeks.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#195

Post by Kequc »

simon_acca wrote: post #165
jwr wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Email is one of the bastions of the decentralised Internet and we should hang on to it. This. I hope someone will eventually create an "E-mail server in a box" package for Ubuntu LTS, so that more people can run their own E-mail. I'm not saying it has to be super-easy for everyone, just that it should avoid unnecessary chore work (like configuring postfix to always use TLS, or plugging postgrey into postfix).

As long as you know Docker, this is pretty much what you are asking: https://github.com/tomav/docker-mailserver . I use it in combination with the rainloop webmail client: https://github.com/jprjr/docker-rainloop . Everything is configured with a single docker-compose, read about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11748036

What is it if anything that happens if my internet cuts out at my home, should I instead use some sort of hosting provider for my mail server?

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#196

Post by falcolas »

jwr wrote: post #131
Nux wrote: post #59

It's absolutely possible to run an email server in 2016 and I encourage anyone capable to do so! Email is one of the bastions of the decentralised Internet and we should hang on to it. Every day more and more people are moving to Gmail/Hotmail/Outlook and while I do understand the reasons, it also puts more and more power into the hands of these providers and the little guy (us) gets more screwed (like marked as junk…

> Email is one of the bastions of the decentralised Internet and we should hang on to it. This. I hope someone will eventually create an "E-mail server in a box" package for Ubuntu LTS, so that more people can run their own E-mail. I'm not saying it has to be super-easy for everyone, just that it should avoid unnecessary chore work (like configuring postfix to always use TLS, or plugging postgrey into postfix).

The problem there is most of the hard work the OP mentions has nothing to do with the mail server itself, but instead it's around DNS, networking, certificates, and monitoring 3rd party services.

Some of this may be able to be automated, but that's the hard part; not installing and configuring a few software packages.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#197

Post by agildehaus »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #161
soneil wrote: post #81

It's worth checking whether you're running IPv6. It does become very relevant. e.g., SPF records need to include it, it must also have a good rDNS, etc. In particular, I know gmail hold IPv6 to higher standards. Some things (e.g. rDNS) that we traditionally treat as 'should', gmail will treat as 'must' over IPv6 - it's being treated as a chance to drop a lot of legacy leeway. I do run my own MTA. It's not high-mainte…

> My best advice is to choose a reputable host. This sucks big time. We should be able to send email from fucking home , not beg an external, bigger guy to either do it for us (one's ISP, google…), or lend us a machine so we can do it from there (Amazon, OVH…). Email providing is so concentrated right now it is starting so show signs of network effects —just like more recent (anti)social networks. This is not right.

I tried to think of network effects in email and could not think of any. To what do you refer?

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#198

Post by OJFord »

Kequc wrote: post #195
simon_acca wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as you know Docker, this is pretty much what you are asking: https://github.com/tomav/docker-mailserver . I use it in combination with the rainloop webmail client: https://github.com/jprjr/docker-rainloop . Everything is configured with a single docker-compose, read about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11748036

What is it if anything that happens if my internet cuts out at my home, should I instead use some sort of hosting provider for my mail server?

    > What is it if anything that happens if my internet cuts
    > out at my home,
You bounce any incoming emails in that period, and (obviously) can't send any.

    > should I instead use some sort of hosting provider
    > for my mail server?
I suppose that's a trade-off against how reliable you consider your ISP and electricity supply, and the volume or importance of email you'd be likely to receive in such a period.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#199

Post by lisper »

I've run my own mail server for >10 years. Getting it set up the first time is a bit of a chore but one it is running it requires nearly no attention. The hardest part is keeping your IP address off the spam black lists.

My setup:

Debian Linux + Postfix + Dovecot + a little greylist milter I wrote myself in Python. Happy to release the code if there's any interest.

I also have a script that automates the process of setting up a mail server but it's not quite ready for prime time. If anyone is interested in being an early adopter let me know.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?

#200

Post by dsr_ »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #157
dsr_ wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been running my own mail server off of a residential connection since 1998, so... 18 years. I do pay for a static IP, and I switched ISPs away from Comcast (who had inherited me as a customer) when they abruptly started to filter inbound port 25 and claimed I had a malware infestation. For years it was qmail, but when I wanted to use SMTP/SSL as much as possible, switching to Postfix was easier than maintaining…

> when they abruptly started to filter inbound port 25 Didn't you mean "outbound"?

No, I didn't.
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