I like my email artisanal just like my bread.
Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one
261–270 of 519 posts
Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
Internet was meant to be decentralized. Lets leave it this way. I am running my server for 15 years and couldn't be more happy with "artisan" infrastructure. I don't want or use webmail (sluggish), I don't want others fingerpoking my emails, I don't want various compulsory registration systems (like requiring my phone number out of """security""" reasons like google), giving others the ability to kill my account and…
Honest and non-rhetorical question here: Have any of your customers had an e-mail they've tried to send not arrive because the recipient's system was using a black-hole list that, for some erroneous reason, had you blocked? If so, were you able to successfully communicate with and/or reasonably work through whatever issue got you black-holed? I haven't administered e-mail servers for 20 years, but back when I did, th…
For what it's worth I've run into the same set of issues at corporations using Google and Microsoft's hosted offerings. Hell, sometimes you can't even send it mail between customers!
Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one
#263I still run my own email system (postfix/dovecot for imap), mostly for one reason: the virtual username function of postfix: I configured postfix with: recipient_delimiter = . which gives me unlimited dynamic virtual addresses (username. @mydomain), so I know where spam/leaks come from if I get unsolicited mail directed to `username. `, and it makes it trivial to block. I know that you can do the same thing with goog…
I've been doing something with dash as the recipient delimiter since the late 1990s and it's been great. But that became a pain when I wanted to switch to hosted email, as many providers wouldn't support it.
I eventually ended up at Fastmail, as they let you build custom Sieve scripts that can do this kind of remapping without having to run your own mail server.
Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one
#264> It's cute, decent enough, and hand-crafted, but it doesn't measure up in usability, features, and performance to the email infrastructure that is run by big providers
What a BS, wake up dude.
> usability, features, and performance?
you really make me laugh, it's so bloated it's barely usable.
Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use a domain, registered at Namecheap, and I forward to my gmail account. If gmail “goes away” I simply configure my email to forward elsewhere. If I’m unhappy with Namecheap forwarding, I point my DNS at another forwarding provider. If I’m unhappy with Namecheap, I transfer my domain to another provider. It gives me all the flexibility I need with almost no work or maintenance. There are enough mail providers that…
Does gmail actually trust the incoming forwarded email? Or mark a lot of it as spam. My understanding is that SPF makes forwarding like this no longer possible if the original sender's address is to be preserved.
If they are using GMail for work, the DNS just points to GMails actual server and authenticates using DKIM as well. Google for Work will provide you with the necessary DNS entries to set. Obviously this will not work with their free offering, you'll need to fork over $6/month for this.
Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one
#266I would really say that "running your own email" is a set of things that can be done independently: - Getting your own domain and using a provider such as fastmail or proton is a first step that gives you lots of security fom arbitrary. Because you own the doorstep, you can change provider without having to inform all your contacts of the move. You're also more secure from unilateral moves from your provider. -Hostin…
I'd like to see something to make it easy to address the case where you are doing #1, but your provider does unilaterally kick you off with short notice for some reason. The email equivalent of a bug out bag [1]. This would be something that provides in a single package an SMTP server, an IMAP and POP server, pre-trained spam filtering, and maybe a web server with a web-based email client, and a simple setup program…
Cream does cloud backups for office 365. Most other business focused backup software will do mail server backups in some form
Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
Internet was meant to be decentralized. Lets leave it this way. I am running my server for 15 years and couldn't be more happy with "artisan" infrastructure. I don't want or use webmail (sluggish), I don't want others fingerpoking my emails, I don't want various compulsory registration systems (like requiring my phone number out of """security""" reasons like google), giving others the ability to kill my account and…
Honest and non-rhetorical question here: Have any of your customers had an e-mail they've tried to send not arrive because the recipient's system was using a black-hole list that, for some erroneous reason, had you blocked? If so, were you able to successfully communicate with and/or reasonably work through whatever issue got you black-holed? I haven't administered e-mail servers for 20 years, but back when I did, th…
That question seems completely unrelated to running a personal mail server?
Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one
#268It's amazing how quickly people with strong feelings about email come out when any mention of self hosting is made. They can't prove a negative, but they valiantly try, often using the very points that are excellent reasons to self-host as reasons we should all just give up. "It doesn't work for me, so it won't work for you" is rather weak when the reasons aren't articulated, when generalizations are made without det…
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Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one
#269It feels weirdly like people saying "this is all too complicated, only experts can handle it" which is giving up a lot of agency. Almost like "Big Tech" is shadow writing pieces to discourage you from trying to escape their grasp :-).
Running your own email server and domain, for people who like systems, is fun. Just like people who do their own oil changes and car maintenance, or people who build their own furniture, etc.
Interestingly enough, this suggests there are some startup opportunities for folks who want to make this stuff a bit easier. Three things I think would be interesting side projects would be 'spam killing' (Barracuda does this as a service for Enterprise, I bet you could do it in clever ways for individuals), "post office" which is a known good relay server with mail agents that you can forward your mail through (think Lets Encrypt but for mail delivery), and a remote access client for phones. Alternatively an AWS offering of a packaged mail server (think WPEngine but for mail) has possibilities as well.
Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one
#270I just did a ctrl+f for Yunohost and only got one hit! Have more people tried it? What was your experience like? Hosting my own email will be a 2022 project of mine. My current plan is to get like a linode/personal server (my first test for myself is to host my own html website :) yes I'm new) to avoid customizing my home router too much.