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Chasquid – SMTP server focused on simplicity

blitiri.com.ar

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Re: Chasquid – SMTP server focused on simplicity

#31

Post by petee »

77pt77 wrote: post #14
slowbdotro wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Self hosted my email for over a decade and as long as you do the recommended SPF, DKIM and DMARC you have basically no problems. Occasionally I turn up in spam when I email someone I haven't before, but that's usually due to the .ro in my domain and the forced text mode rather than html. I've found problems only start occuring when you send transactional email. User signups, notifications, etc. Anything real…

> Occasionally I turn up in spam when I email someone I haven't before Just proved my point.

Google puts random things in Spam, including ones marked 'not spam' or from otherwise reputable senders (like Github, despite receiving their emails for a decade). My monthly credit card bills occasionally are dumped in spam.

Its not really proof of much unless one is constantly getting junked

Re: Chasquid – SMTP server focused on simplicity

#32

Post by julienmarie »

MitPitt wrote: post #15

Does anyone know of an SMTP server which is easily usable with Caddy? I find tinkering with certificates quite bothersome, and I won't give up Caddy as I already host a bunch of apps with it.

Postalserver uses caddy for it's web and API interface.

Re: Chasquid – SMTP server focused on simplicity

#33

Post by t0astbread »

Nextgrid wrote: post #17
keyle wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because email delivery is such a weird dance. It's getting harder every year to have your mail delivered without being part of those few services since the protocol is abused so much.

To be fair, you can relay through those services to work around the delivery problem. It's still better than nothing since they now only see your outbound mail, but inbound mail processing & storage is still local & self-hosted.

How does that work exactly? Do you set up your server as higher priority MX and the external provider as backup and then configure your server to relay outbound mail through that other service? And all your server has to have is a valid certificate while DKIM/RDNS/SPF get handled by the external service?

Is there anything to watch out for (e.g. w.r.t. bounce mail) in this setup?

Edit: Maybe you don't even have to set up an MX record for the external provider (unless you want to use it as a fallback for incoming mail).

Re: Chasquid – SMTP server focused on simplicity

#34

Post by julienmarie »

I keep on hearing that hosting your own server is a pain. Email costs were always an issue for me. I manage a few e-commerce website. Initially when they were small I used MailChimp. Then moved to AWS SES. Now I moved to my own self hosted postalserver. My mailing lists are not huge ( 100k recipients) and I send daily and I don't have much of a deliverability issue. Depending on the audience my open rates are between 35 and 55%. What I learned is: - Make sure your configuration is perfect. From reverse dns to DKIM. Everything should be aligned. - Have a clean email list. Validate emails ( MX, etc ), double optin, remove hard bounces, respect unsubscribes to the t ( people don't always unsubscribe using the link, but often just send an email to customer service, provide the option fornthe customer service team to unsubscribe people from marketing). - Use a email warming service like mailreach. It seems weird but it makes a world of difference. It really works. I spend less than $50/month all in all with a beefy instance on Hetzner Cloud. For the volume I send it would cost 6x this on SES.

Re: Chasquid – SMTP server focused on simplicity

#35

Post by dugite-code »

t0astbread wrote: post #33
Nextgrid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, you can relay through those services to work around the delivery problem. It's still better than nothing since they now only see your outbound mail, but inbound mail processing & storage is still local & self-hosted.

How does that work exactly? Do you set up your server as higher priority MX and the external provider as backup and then configure your server to relay outbound mail through that other service? And all your server has to have is a valid certificate while DKIM/RDNS/SPF get handled by the external service? Is there anything to watch out for (e.g. w.r.t. bounce mail) in this setup? Edit: Maybe you don't even have to set…

That's exactly how it works, although you don't need an external backup modern email servers will retry for many days before returning a undeliverable notification if a valid MX record exists. With email receiving and delivering email are two separate tasks that don't need to be done by the same service.

For example I use Amazons SES. They have SMTP credentials you plug into your server and you add the DKIM and SPF txt entries to your DNS. The only thing that points to your own server is the MX record. Gmail will re-write emails to be FROM gmail while others may allow you to do similar to SES.

You don't actually need a valid cert or IPv6 to receive email, everyone only cares about the sending side of things.

Amazon will want to know what automated systems you have to deal with bounces and complaints to protect their service but that's about it

Re: Chasquid – SMTP server focused on simplicity

#36

Post by dugite-code »

Avamander wrote: post #29
rfmoz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking for help with Postfix configuration usually put you in forums threads with almost +10 years.

Choosing Postfix at this point in time is a mistake anyways though. Things like Stalwart or Haraka are just so much nicer to use.

Why? it's widely deployed, actively maintained and more importantly reliable. 10+ year old support threads are mostly still valid advice.

Re: Chasquid – SMTP server focused on simplicity

#37

Post by patmorgan23 »

t0astbread wrote: post #33
Nextgrid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, you can relay through those services to work around the delivery problem. It's still better than nothing since they now only see your outbound mail, but inbound mail processing & storage is still local & self-hosted.

How does that work exactly? Do you set up your server as higher priority MX and the external provider as backup and then configure your server to relay outbound mail through that other service? And all your server has to have is a valid certificate while DKIM/RDNS/SPF get handled by the external service? Is there anything to watch out for (e.g. w.r.t. bounce mail) in this setup? Edit: Maybe you don't even have to set…

It's just like doing bulk mail through a third party, except now you're sending your regular mail through them too.

MX records are used to figure out where to deliver mail so you would leave those pointed at your own mail server, no need to set up any MX record pointed to the 3rd party.

You would need DKIM/SPF, etc for sender verification pointed at the 3rd party.

Re: Chasquid – SMTP server focused on simplicity

#38

Post by t0astbread »

dugite-code wrote: post #35
t0astbread wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that work exactly? Do you set up your server as higher priority MX and the external provider as backup and then configure your server to relay outbound mail through that other service? And all your server has to have is a valid certificate while DKIM/RDNS/SPF get handled by the external service? Is there anything to watch out for (e.g. w.r.t. bounce mail) in this setup? Edit: Maybe you don't even have to set…

That's exactly how it works, although you don't need an external backup modern email servers will retry for many days before returning a undeliverable notification if a valid MX record exists. With email receiving and delivering email are two separate tasks that don't need to be done by the same service. For example I use Amazons SES. They have SMTP credentials you plug into your server and you add the DKIM and SPF t…

I was thinking of the case where your server has to send out bounce mail but I guess if it's configured right, it should also just relay that.

Re: Chasquid – SMTP server focused on simplicity

#39

Post by dugite-code »

t0astbread wrote: post #38
dugite-code wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly how it works, although you don't need an external backup modern email servers will retry for many days before returning a undeliverable notification if a valid MX record exists. With email receiving and delivering email are two separate tasks that don't need to be done by the same service. For example I use Amazons SES. They have SMTP credentials you plug into your server and you add the DKIM and SPF t…

I was thinking of the case where your server has to send out bounce mail but I guess if it's configured right, it should also just relay that.

Yup bounce emails are routed just like any other email so they go through the relay. This is actually one of the gotcha's when using fetchmail, you can accidentally send out a lot of unintentional bounce emails from an invalid server if you are not careful.

Re: Chasquid – SMTP server focused on simplicity

#40

Post by mlhpdx »

8organicbits wrote: post #22

The hook functionality[1] looks easy to extend. I was looking for something that could trigger workflows for inbound email, anyone have (alternative) tool recommendations or experience? [1] https://blitiri.com.ar/p/chasquid/hooks/

My approach to inbound-email triggered workflow using SES, which is working great for my needs:

https://github.com/mlhpdx/email-delivery

It’s industrial strength in some respects, but not for those wanting an e-mail UX.

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