Products > Security

The case for self hosting a email server. Is there one?

<< < (8/8)

JustMeHere:

--- Quote from: BradC on May 13, 2021, 12:05:36 pm ---
--- Quote from: JustMeHere on May 10, 2021, 02:58:58 am ---Yes.  It's a good idea (actually you pretty much must) proxy your email through a service like dynu.com.   This gives you the ability to go offline.  It also gives you a reputable outbound path.  You want a Store And Forward (SAF) and a Outbound Mail Relay (OMR) service.   You will also need to make sure to set up your SPF, DMARC, and DKIM.
--- End quote ---

I use a $100/yr OpenVZ partition to run an outbound relay. Our prime inbound MX is my home connection but I do have the OpenVZ set up as a store and forward secondary. Been running it this way since 2006.

Provided you get the DNS set up right with spf/dmarc it's not difficult. I've had two delivery issues in ~15 years and both of those were Microsoft and "reputation" based. Didn't take long to sort out.

People make out running an E-mail server is difficult, but provided you can get an outbound address where the DNS forward matches the reverse it's really not difficult.

For most people there's probably not a "case" as such. We just wanted to stay away from third party providers and what we do works for us. We do run our own DNS servers also, so it's maybe a bit of "control-freakism" also.

--- End quote ---

I think it was Microsoft, but it could have been Yahoo.  Because my IP was in "Comcast's Dynamic Range" one service would not accept my email.  I've been through a few over the years.  TZO was awesome but they sold out.  They were taken over by DYN.  They were also great until Oracle bought them and ruined them as a company.  I then wen to another brand I wouldn't mention that charged me a fortune.  Now I get my services for much less than $100/yr.

peter-h:
Late post here, but my 2c:

You should be in charge of your DNS anyway, so you control which server the name resolves to. Use a company by all means (practically you will want to use the domain registrar or some such) but you need to have the DNS control panel.

For sending email, you really want it DKIM signed nowadays, so using a commercial SMTP AUTH gateway is the way to go. Sending emails from your own IP is not a good idea because even "fixed IPs" come out of an ISP's dynamic block and can end up on blacklists.

For receiving email, nothing wrong with running your own POP or whatever server. Then you can implement whatever stuff you want on it, host whatever website(s), etc. Make it compatible with every email client you have... Use a commercial spam filtering service though otherwise you will be inundated with spam.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page