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

Self Hosting Email Server

garron.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–28 of 28 posts

Re: Self Hosting Email Server

#21

Post by nix23 »

tridentlead wrote: post #16
nix23 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But i want imap too, and a web-mail, oh and a Calendar and contact (with team-functionality) too, synchronize them to my phone, and i want sieve functionality, anti-spam, and because it's written a pseudo antivirus-solution. And a self-service solution so users can reset the password with 2FA...still easy?

Yes, generally if you over-complicate something it becomes over-complicated.

So you give your users the root password so they can change the password them-self....oversimplification often solves just a small portion of a bigger problem.

Re: Self Hosting Email Server

#23

Post by marmot777 »

wahern wrote: post #19
marmot777 wrote: post #17

Not to nitpick but I think that the part about the spf record isn’t that great. The typical spf record has ip addresses, blocks of ip addresses, or hosts but I don’t think just v=spf1 mx ~all.

Not for simple setups. If the same servers are used for both ingoing and outgoing, "mx" is all you want or really need. If you use a third-party hosting service for webmail, IMAP, etc, where they might also handle outgoing for particular clients, or for hosted outbound services (EasyDNS offers this), then you would usually "include:" their SPF records rather than copy their rules and addresses. Theoretically, hardcod…

I don’t think that an SPF record with just mx -all gives you that. You need to put IP addresses, IP address blocks, or hosts for the spf to be valid.

Maybe the author left out the host in the assumption that the reader would understand that part but essentially mx -all tells mail servers and inbox providers to soft fail all mail from the domain.

Re: Self Hosting Email Server

#24

Post by wahern »

marmot777 wrote: post #23
wahern wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for simple setups. If the same servers are used for both ingoing and outgoing, "mx" is all you want or really need. If you use a third-party hosting service for webmail, IMAP, etc, where they might also handle outgoing for particular clients, or for hosted outbound services (EasyDNS offers this), then you would usually "include:" their SPF records rather than copy their rules and addresses. Theoretically, hardcod…

I don’t think that an SPF record with just mx -all gives you that. You need to put IP addresses, IP address blocks, or hosts for the spf to be valid. Maybe the author left out the host in the assumption that the reader would understand that part but essentially mx -all tells mail servers and inbox providers to soft fail all mail from the domain.

Most of the mechanisms (a, ip4, ip6, mx, and ptr) effectively resolve to one or more IP addresses which are then matched against the sender IP address. The "mx" mechanism will query the MX records for the envelope (MAIL FROM) sender domain, query the A records for every MX record, and then try to match all those resolved IP addresses to the sender IP address. If one of the IP addresses matches, then the mechanism's action qualifier is applied, short-circuiting further resolution. As the default qualifier is "+" (pass), a match on "mx" (i.e. "+mx") means to accept the message.

If your MX hosts are the only permissible outbound hosts, and the inbound and outbound IP addresses are the same, then the "mx" mechanism is all you need. The very purpose of the "mx" mechanism and most others is to avoid having to hardcode IP addresses in your policy.

Re: Self Hosting Email Server

#25

Post by a012 »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #20
a012 wrote: post #2

Why did whoever think #FFFFFF text on the #000000 background is a good idea?

I don't have a problem with it. Maybe you should turn your brightness down or add some more lighting in your room? Pure white shouldn't be blinding you.

I'm using BenQ SW2700PT which was calibrated, and my room is also not bright at all. The pure white text on pure black background give me headache, but I don't have any issues on https://nim-lang.org/docs/manual.html dark mode which isn't pure black and white.

Re: Self Hosting Email Server

#26

Post by treeman79 »

dmm wrote: post #12
jonquest wrote: post #7

I was a mail administrator for around 10 years in a fairly small business and I can’t imagine why anyone would want to host their own email. My old employer contacted me because a system I had built finally died and they wanted to build a new one. Once I got over the shock that they had still been using it I suggested going with a hosted solution. I mean they’re relatively cheap for good service and avoids a world of…

> I can’t imagine why anyone would want to host their own email resisting mass surveillance Also, whatever value Clinton saw in self-hosting.

There was a LOT of surveillance of her emails.

Re: Self Hosting Email Server

#27

Post by marmot777 »

wahern wrote: post #24
marmot777 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that an SPF record with just mx -all gives you that. You need to put IP addresses, IP address blocks, or hosts for the spf to be valid. Maybe the author left out the host in the assumption that the reader would understand that part but essentially mx -all tells mail servers and inbox providers to soft fail all mail from the domain.

Most of the mechanisms (a, ip4, ip6, mx, and ptr) effectively resolve to one or more IP addresses which are then matched against the sender IP address. The "mx" mechanism will query the MX records for the envelope (MAIL FROM) sender domain, query the A records for every MX record, and then try to match all those resolved IP addresses to the sender IP address. If one of the IP addresses matches, then the mechanism's a…

Yes, but as a matter of syntax, don’t you have to specify the IP address? What is the mx refereeing to in your example?

V=spf1 ip4:198.51.100.123 ~all

I think the ptr mechanism’s deprecated.

Anyway, if you’re correct that a valid and complete spf record can be published without an IP address, IP address block, or included hosts, then I’ve learned something new today.

So you are saying that v=spf1 mx -all is a valid and complete spf record?

Re: Self Hosting Email Server

#28

Post by dmm »

treeman79 wrote: post #26
dmm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can’t imagine why anyone would want to host their own email resisting mass surveillance Also, whatever value Clinton saw in self-hosting.

There was a LOT of surveillance of her emails.

No doubt but targeted surveillance is very different from mass surveillance.
Post reply on HN