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How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

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Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#331

Post by ekiara »

nerpderp83 wrote: post #192
ryandrake wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently moved off of Gmail and now run my own personal/family E-mail server, and I have to say so far it has been pretty pain free. I probably just haven't been doing it for long enough to run into trouble yet. Bog standard Debian install, Exim4 + dovecot + SpamAssassin. TLS, SPF, DKIM, and other acronyms all set up and working. The initial setup was a few days config file tweaking (why don't these things come wor…

Having run both Exim and Postfix, I would highly recommend you run Postfix, if not for the security for the configuration. If you can't run Postfix, run Exim in a container.

Could you expand on this? What security vulnerabilities does Exim4 have that you'd avoid just by choosing Postfix as an alternative?

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#332

Post by drdaeman »

quicksilver03 wrote: post #219
drdaeman wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually frustrating, e.g. with a large power outage when you expect an important message. I run my mailhost (single-node) since 2005 and I thought that I need HA more than once or twice. Sadly, I haven't figured out a proper fully-redundant solution. Syncing mailboxes with e.g. Syncthing is way too fragile. Recently, I wanted to experiment with DBMail + CockroachDB cluster but haven't yet found time for that…

Dovecot has an excellent implementation of 2-way synchronization of mailboxes: run Dovecot on 2 different servers in different physical locations, set up MX records and a SMTP software on both servers and you have your HA solution.

Built-in sync causes accidental message duplication in shared folders. Or, at least, it did last time I've tried it, some years ago.

(But maybe I should review and simplify my mailbox/account structure... It grew quite messy at the moment.)

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#333

Post by brongondwana »

Shoothe wrote: post #330
brongondwana wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm literally RIGHT NOW writing up an email to the IETF EXTRA mailing list, following up from the email I sent as co-chair to the IETF JMAP mailing list about conflicts for our session in London at IETF101 in March. We've been working inside the IETF on JMAP since Chicago (IETF98) in March last year.

Excellent! Is there a place to look for progress on this front? IETF mailing lists? jmap.io?

We're keeping jmap.io up-to-date with the latest spec (including the calendar and contacts bits - calendar is partially underway through ietf calext - contacts are not yet on standards track)

Also:

https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/jmap/about/

Has links to the latest revisions of the drafts - and to the github repo where issues are being tracked.

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#334

Post by Shoothe »

brongondwana wrote: post #333
Shoothe wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent! Is there a place to look for progress on this front? IETF mailing lists? jmap.io?

We're keeping jmap.io up-to-date with the latest spec (including the calendar and contacts bits - calendar is partially underway through ietf calext - contacts are not yet on standards track) Also: https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/jmap/about/ Has links to the latest revisions of the drafts - and to the github repo where issues are being tracked.

Thanks a lot! I really appreciate it.

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#335

Post by shadytrees »

notinventedhear wrote: post #16

Yeesh, there's so much involved. I've been running my own mail server with https://mailinabox.email for ~2 years and can heartily recommend it. Still, even with that there are gotchas if you want to be able to send messages from your server to Google et al, eg. reverse-DNS-records, DKIM, SPF. Not for the pressed-for-time.

Another happy mailinabox user here. I love have total control over where my data goes. If you use third-party no-installation-required server monitoring (with Pingdom or something), you can get mobile notifications if your server ever goes down, which for me has only ever happened due to kernel upgrades.

I also have no trouble sending email to Gmail users after carefully following all the steps in the manual! The only sticky point I had was that it required fancy DNS records that Namecheap doesn't support -- I think if I were doing it all over again I'd transfer domains over to a better nameserver.

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#336

Post by KeepFlying »

sliken wrote: post #229
Torgo wrote: post #7

I started running my own email server around 2014. I am using every mitigation I can find, but I still get an unending torrent of spam that slips through. If tweaking spam filters and deleting spam is your idea of fun, then run your own email server.

Install the current spamassassin and turn on greylisting should get rid of 99%. Then I'd block the spam only domains like .click, .link, .party, .top, .webcam, .xyz, and .stream. That should be enough to get you close to zero, sure having spamassin learn based on your Junk folder will help improve things. I've run a mail server for 20+ years and never had a spam issue, periodically I do updates spam assassin of cours…

You feel comfortable blocking entire TLDs like that? I understand they send a lot of spam, but what about valid emails from those TLDs?

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#337

Post by KeepFlying »

dade_ wrote: post #310
ef4 wrote: post #285

> Getting off GMail is one of the best ways to take back your data in the face of dragnet surveillance. This just isn't true. You can host your own mail server and GMail will probably still end up hosting a large fraction of the email you read and write, because the people you correspond with are still using GMail. (In the same vein, you can refuse to have a Facebook account but Facebook probably has a dossier on you…

That is a very defeatist position.

Defeatest of realist?

You can and should work to reduce your footprint if that concerns you, but there are still systematic issues that make it hard to stay completely outside of there services. Mainly what OP mentioned with contact uploads.

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#338

Post by nerpderp83 »

ekiara wrote: post #331
nerpderp83 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having run both Exim and Postfix, I would highly recommend you run Postfix, if not for the security for the configuration. If you can't run Postfix, run Exim in a container.

Could you expand on this? What security vulnerabilities does Exim4 have that you'd avoid just by choosing Postfix as an alternative?

Postfix has a very clear separation of concerns and least privledge in the use of lots of helper daemons. Exim4 doesn't not have this architecture and is less secure because of it.

http://www.postfix.org/OVERVIEW.html

Re: How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)

#339

Post by mobweb »

rhizome wrote: post #242
mobweb wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't you just setup a domain with an email hosting provider and then turn on catch-all for that domain? For me I can just use any email @my-domain and it will be forwarded to my actual email address.

Then you start getting an amazing number of emails to alice@yourdomain.com, bob@yourdomain.com, chris@yourdomain.com, dan@yourdomain.com, ceo@yourdomain.com, sales@yourdomain.com, etc.

Not if you let your email hoster spam filtering though? I've been doing that for ages and never had an issue with spam.
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