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Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

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Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#301

Post by m3nu »

stiray wrote: post #230
pyrale wrote: post #122

I 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…

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…

Using the same stack and have to agree. Once it’s up, it’s rather low maintenance. I wouldn’t start again from scratch, though today.

There is also a guy, Jar, who runs a rather his own email service, mxroute, quite successfully. Users love it and he seems to know his stuff.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#302

Post by lostlogin »

stiray wrote: post #230
pyrale wrote: post #122

I 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…

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…

It’s not so much that I want to go all the way and do it myself, but I’m interested to see the gold standard way and as per the OP, perhaps go part the way (ie not send) - do you have a resource you could point me at that you recommend or rate? Not trying to get you to do my dirty work, just wondering if you have a resource you use.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#303

Post by ananonymoususer »

belorn wrote: post #259
chriscjcj wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

(Running a email system for a few thousand users) > If so, were you able to successfully communicate with and/or reasonably work through whatever issue got you black-holed? Yes. Practically all black-lists have a de-list form that one can use, and most seem to auto-delist fairly fast as soon they don't get any more reports from honey-trap and other sources. We do have a few custom written ways to detect hacked accoun…

It's better now, but in the early days of organized blacklists (more than 20 years ago) it was somewhat chaotic. Many large ISPs ran their own blacklists and some were poorly managed. AOL was the worst of them all. Their admin staff was unprofessional and unresponsive when I provided a PoC for their defective spam control system.

There are a few sites where you can plug in an IP address to see if it's on any blacklists. A handy thing to do before setting up a new server is to work with your provider to find a clean IP address beforehand. Here's one that I have used: https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#304

Post by johnklos »

gnopgnip wrote: post #257
johnklos wrote: post #253

It'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…

You get access to logging etc. with an outlook business account

Good to know! Thanks :)

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#305

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

kaetemi wrote: post #237
codazoda wrote: post #193

Earlier 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…

But what if... the TLD owner decides to 10x the domain price?

Transfer the domain. You can generally find a deal for transferred domains.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#306

Post by quesera »

authed wrote: post #245
blop wrote: post #44

I 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…

> so I know where spam/leaks come from unless they use BCC

Deliver to address is always in the headers, even if message is Bcc'ed to you.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#308

Post by behringer »

rmdes wrote: post #6

Someone should try "artisanal email server" using cloudron or yunohost ! the bigger problem is that "authoritative" email monopolies such as Gmail, 365 and the other big ones arbitrarily define and impose what is a legit email server or not and even with better score than gmail an "artisanal" email server can suffer from being classified into spam by the big tech players just because they can and will do anything to…

The only problem I've had are with small players. You can't seem to reach anybody in charge of configuring and they do stupid shit that doesn't actually work.

The big players all have a process and followup within days.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#309

Post by peteri »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #235
throwaway27727 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of sister comments here saying that they've been running a mail server for X amount of years, where X is a rather large number. That will obviously come with some reputation for your mail server, reducing the curve of being classified as down. I would be interested in hearing from someone who tried to setup a new mail server in the last 1-2 years who was able to run it without a hitch.

According to AWS, most mail servers will not even count statistics for low-volume senders. If that is true, then it won't matter whether your personal email server has been up for 20 years or 1 year, it won't have any reputation.

Yeah, I have that problem with gmail, I had a test account with a weak password get exploited a few years ago. Now for any new gmail address I want to send to seems to endup in spam. The problem here is there is no getting out of jail easily for low volume email users.

My personal gmail account is full of spam and emails I do want from email lists end up the spam folder randomly.

Re: Running your own email is increasingly an artisanal choice, not a practical one

#310

Post by lostlogin »

denton-scratch wrote: post #278
chriscjcj wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 [...] ? Yes. Twice. In the first case, the mail provider was our ISP; and they got themselves in some mainstream blacklists. The problems getting that sorted out were part of the motivation for bringing mail in-house. In the second case, there was some academic departmental mailserver…

> Well, they're right: you have taken on that responsibility. You made it, and you're running it: who else can they complain to?

Assuming logic applies to humans is painfully wrong. I wish it wasn’t.

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