Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server • Hacker News Board

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#91

Post by Grimm665 » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 2:32 PM UTC

sergiomattei wrote: post #13

This is a great initiative. The last time I remember setting up a mail server using Postfix or Dovecot was around 2015. It was a traumatizing experience. It rarely worked, all my email went to spam and I absolutely hated the amount of hackery and duct tape required to keep it working. Configuration files, missed emails... It was so unpleasant, to this day I avoid messing with mail on servers at all costs. I'd much ra…

I also hated the headache of Postfix so I switched to OpenSMTPD on OpenBSD and it is so so much nicer. It feels much more set-and-forget than any other time I've tried running mail servers on Linux.

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#92

Post by fragileone » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 2:32 PM UTC

neals wrote: post #67

tommasoamici wrote: post #52

I see no one has mentioned Mailu ( https://mailu.io/1.7/ ). It’s a self hosted mail server made up of a couple docker images. I would recommend it based on my use and experience. I’ve been using it for my personal email and for automated no-reply messages in a few projects with no delivery issues. I’m hosting on a Contabo VPS. It handles spam with rspamd, sets you up with DMARC, DKIM, has an admin interface, web mail…

What keeps me from running my own like this is stuff like, how easy would migration to another sever be and how easy is backup and recover.

Docker is pretty portable by design. If you use bind mounts you can just scp the docker-conpose.yml and your bind mount volumes to your new server and you're done. If using Docker-managed volumes you'll need to docker cp the data out of them first before scp, then docker cp them into your volumes once you docker-compose up your containers.

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#93

Post by zertrin » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

lazyweb wrote: post #90

I've been running my own selfhosted mail server setup for about six years [1] without much trouble. It's a lot of work in the beginning, and there is a learning curve, but I've never experienced any of the issues lots of other people seem to have with their setups. [1] https://jschumacher.info/2021/05/running-a-private-mail-serv...

Same experience here, used the workaround.org tutorial as strong inspiration (not blindly copy pasting, but to serve as guided path to follow and learn).

Steep learning curve indeed, but after initial setup it's just working and necessitate no tending except when I do major upgrades (of Debian so every 2.5 years on average), in case some config needs updating.

But this is really a private email server with no users except me, thus probably not encountering the issues related to mail servers with many users that might or might not have a good email hygiene.

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#94

Post by whalesalad » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

I remember building my own mail server on a PIII with 500mhz and 128mb of ram. I used qmailrocks.org and learned so much about Linux and how things work. This was in like 2003 or 2004? My how times have changed!

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#95

Post by AgoRapide » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

sergiomattei wrote: post #13

This is a great initiative. The last time I remember setting up a mail server using Postfix or Dovecot was around 2015. It was a traumatizing experience. It rarely worked, all my email went to spam and I absolutely hated the amount of hackery and duct tape required to keep it working. Configuration files, missed emails... It was so unpleasant, to this day I avoid messing with mail on servers at all costs. I'd much ra…

I had great fun setting up Postfix and Dovecot recently.

However, I was very specific with always going for the minimum most simple solution. I do not have a dedicated database for instance, but use just mbox and POP3.

And I did not even bother much with anti-spam, I chose a super easy filter in Thunderbird instead, sending everything with 'unknown' in Received: header to the Thrash folder.

Getting accepted by others was also not much of an issue (but lots of details of course, PTR, SPF, DKIM, DMARC).

More details here if anyone is interested:

http://bef.no/DitchingWindowsAndAWS/

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#96

Post by AgoRapide » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

papaf wrote: post #29

sildur wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got good results with Hetzner. But it takes some time to set up a server that complies with all of Google requirements. Also, I once inherited a spammy IP address and took me some time to remove it from spam databases.

Thats a good point about IP addresses. I think the advantage with Hetzner cloud is that you rent the IP address separately. If you get an IP with a bad reputation you can stop renting it and get a new one. Edit: I have not actually tried changing the IP, its just an idea. Also, I hope the spammers don't start doing this and spoil it for everyone else.

Hetzner does not open port 25 outbound (SMTP) until you have paid your first invoice. I therefore believe them to handle this problem somewhat seriously.

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#97

Post by AgoRapide » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

shankspeaks wrote: post #11

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #10

Unrelated but: what VPS hosts are reliable for email? I've had trouble with Linode being blocked in the past. I'm aware Google Cloud blocks port 25. I haven't tried EC2 but I assume the worst.

I've run mail servers on EC2 before. You'll need to raise a request to remove the SMTP 25 restriction (both inbound and outbound), and also apply for a DNS reverse ptr update for that IP for it to work.

I just switched from EC2 to Hetzner. I found Hetzner's approach much more customer friendly, you set up PTR yourself for instance.

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#98

Post by miedpo » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

sergiomattei wrote: post #13

This is a great initiative. The last time I remember setting up a mail server using Postfix or Dovecot was around 2015. It was a traumatizing experience. It rarely worked, all my email went to spam and I absolutely hated the amount of hackery and duct tape required to keep it working. Configuration files, missed emails... It was so unpleasant, to this day I avoid messing with mail on servers at all costs. I'd much ra…

I haven't tried Maddy (I'm sure it's quite good), but I do use Cloudron right now and it's a breeze to manage email in it.

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#99

Post by bluedino » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

sergiomattei wrote: post #13

This is a great initiative. The last time I remember setting up a mail server using Postfix or Dovecot was around 2015. It was a traumatizing experience. It rarely worked, all my email went to spam and I absolutely hated the amount of hackery and duct tape required to keep it working. Configuration files, missed emails... It was so unpleasant, to this day I avoid messing with mail on servers at all costs. I'd much ra…

How would you compare it to a non-trivial Apache or NGINX install? What about configuring an environment for Rails or Docker or…?

Re: Maddy: Composable all-in-one mail server

#100

Post by zie » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

aetherspawn wrote: post #16

figbert wrote: post #7

I've been using Maddy now for about a month for my email, and it's incredible. The dev says it's not caddy for email – but in my experience, it's certainly been that easy. I've got to write a longer article about this, but self-hosting email is incredibly liberating. I now own my entire digital identity. I can work on open source projects with developers around the world completely while relying only on my own capabi…

How did you get around deliverability issues?

I don't run Maddy, but I do run email for an organization of a few thousand people. It happens on occasion from various providers, The larger organizations(MS,Google,etc) will spam your logs SMTP errors with a URL. You visit the URL and do whatever actions they want that particular day and life goes on. It's not hard, but it is a bit annoying sometimes.

Generally if you have a static IP and you don't go being all stupid with spam, it's not THAT difficult, but you do have to jump a few hoops and then occasionally play wackamole with their spam prevention junk for the month.

It seems to come in waves, like email will be fine for a few months and then 1 provider after another will be all upset about gosh knows what that day and you have to visit URL's and push a few buttons.

I've been to lazy to track it, and the various reasons for that particular day, but this has been my experience. A few times a year you have to go babysit SMTP so email can be delivered again.