Author Topic: The case for self hosting a email server. Is there one?  (Read 9383 times)

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Offline bitwelder

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Re: The case for self hosting a email server. Is there one?
« Reply #25 on: January 18, 2021, 03:02:06 pm »
The initial post didn't specify if the case was for a residential or a commercial user, but in the former case (in some countries) since many years the ISPs do not even allow traffic on port 25, to avoid the proliferation of spam sources.
So for a normal household may simply not be possible to keep the 'family' mail server at home (unless perhaps special arrangements i.e. paying extra fees).
 

Offline PKTKS

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Re: The case for self hosting a email server. Is there one?
« Reply #26 on: January 18, 2021, 03:10:49 pm »
The initial post didn't specify if the case was for a residential or a commercial user, but in the former case (in some countries) since many years the ISPs do not even allow traffic on port 25, to avoid the proliferation of spam sources.
So for a normal household may simply not be possible to keep the 'family' mail server at home (unless perhaps special arrangements i.e. paying extra fees).

IMHO that distinction has failed way back in the 90s ...

At least here ..  to be competitive and "modern" ISPs can not impose
such  arbitrary port blockage...

We all know that our privacy is ZERO.. emails and traffic are already
snooped and power the black markets...

But blocking port 25 or 20/21  will certainly hit ports 110 145 993 995 ..

which makes even more non-sense to block IMAP POP and  other clients..

At least here.. all ports are free without restriction.. and we know
all the stuff is being snooped by faceless assholes

Paul

PS.  ALAS... any reasonable smart kid would  workaround this
      with a simple proxy setup or TOR...   vanished the stupid blockage..
« Last Edit: January 18, 2021, 03:15:54 pm by PKTKS »
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: The case for self hosting a email server. Is there one?
« Reply #27 on: January 18, 2021, 03:26:35 pm »
OP, I was going to write a ten thousand world dissertation on TLS and the CA root authority, but other's have already done this.

Data centers are invested in security. Although they may be the NSA in disguise, your data is safer somewhere in the cloud than on a Rasberry Pi next to the ISPs stock router. It's not the Chinese state or those Fancy Bear's that are the threat to personal users, but rather, malicious 'hobby' hackers who will cause a lot of trouble for private citizens, with little or no retribution.

For self-hosting, be sure any funky color changing IoT light bulbs are not on the same network segment as the self-signed TLS mail, web or media server.
Hobby hackers aren't much of a threat. Malware as a business is. The groups creating malware are well educated, crafty and well funded. Some variants are sold as Malware as a Service. It's a business worth billions of dollars. State actors are a threat as well. Even seemingly very mundane companies are targeted by Russian, US and Chinese governments because they know or think access to your data provides some benefit. A common mistake is thinking you're not interesting enough. You may very well be for reasons you did not consider.
 

Offline fordem

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Re: The case for self hosting a email server. Is there one?
« Reply #28 on: February 08, 2021, 03:08:29 pm »
What I don't think I've seen mentioned is the need for a robust reliable redundant infrastructure, when last did you have a power failure?  a comms failure? a hardware failure?
 

Offline JustMeHere

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Re: The case for self hosting a email server. Is there one?
« Reply #29 on: May 09, 2021, 01:48:35 pm »
I do it because I got tired of my email changing every time I move or the ISP changes hands.

It's also good experience incase you need to be a server admin.
 

Offline brucehoult

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Re: The case for self hosting a email server. Is there one?
« Reply #30 on: May 10, 2021, 12:34:23 am »
I do it because I got tired of my email changing every time I move or the ISP changes hands.

It's also good experience incase you need to be a server admin.

Running your own email server is completely unnecessary for that. All you need is to have your own domain name.

I've had my own domain for  ... checks ...

Domain Name: HOULT.ORG
Creation Date: 2000-05-10T10:11:35Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2029-05-10T10:11:35Z

So actually that's 21 years ago *today*. And I keep ahead on the expiry date -- I prepaid it up to 10 years a year ago.

Over the years that's been hosted in a number of places.

- I've had my own Linux mail server at home

- a friend in the USA with a hosted box at rackspace.com offered me free hosting in exchange for some light admin duties and "his paying customers not noticing whatever I did on the box".

- once gmail started and was clearly the best webmail app I used a .forward from the rackspace machine. That only strengthened once they got a great iOS native app.

- sadly my friend died a few years ago. I'm now using a commercial hosting service, but just having them forward everything to gmail. Some of my other family members are using webmail and pop/imap directly on the current commercial provider.

- I regularly download and archive everything from gmail


For the moment, and for quite a few years now, I'm happy with physically reading and sending my mail via gmail. But I don't depend on them in any way. Physically, all my mail goes first to a server that I have at least some management control over before being forwarded to gmail.

If either google or the web hosting company disappear or change their T&Cs in an annoying way I can pack up and go elsewhere with a few minutes of work. No one who sends me email will notice a thing.
 
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Offline JustMeHere

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Re: The case for self hosting a email server. Is there one?
« Reply #31 on: May 10, 2021, 02:58:58 am »
I wouldn't recommend to run a mail server at home if your internet access has dynamic IP addresses. Most mail servers verify the reverse mapping and many also block prefixes used for dynamic address pools, because they are the common source of bot generated SPAM. In that case your mail server could only receive email from the internet and needs a smarthost or mail relay for sending. Another solution would be a tunnel to a server with a fixed IP address.

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. 
 

Offline emece67

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Re: The case for self hosting a email server. Is there one?
« Reply #32 on: May 13, 2021, 10:02:40 am »
.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2022, 04:24:30 pm by emece67 »
 

Offline MIS42N

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Re: The case for self hosting a email server. Is there one?
« Reply #33 on: May 13, 2021, 11:41:41 am »
I've owned my own domain since 1999 and run a mail server at home (dovecot/postfix on Linux) since I think 2009. I don't really know what I'm doing (just follow the set up instructions) but haven't had too many problems. I have a fixed IPv4 address (and a block of IPv6 addresses but not implemented for mail yet). The domain registrar provides the DNS and tools to maintain my own DNS records. The MX records are set so mail preferentially goes to my server, but if not there's a catchall set up in the domain registrar's own mail system, and it forwards all mail to my ISP's mail server (the ISP allows a user to set up several email addresses hosted on their mail server). I use Thunderbird as a mail client and the connection is via IMAP. If the mail server goes down for any reason, mail appears in the ISP account and I just drag and drop it from one account to the other when the server is back up. This moves it from server to server so it is as if the 'real' server was up all the time.

The question was about the case for self hosting. I don't know if there is a good one. I have many thousands of mail messages some dating back to 1999 and running to many gigabyte. I have this stored in quite a complex hierarchy. It is useful on occasions to search old messages.  I also issue different people different email addresses. For example paypal knows me as paypal@domain so if I receive something purportedly from paypal but not using the correct address I know it's spam without looking at it. Also if a particular email is spammed it is easy to delete that account, inform the rightful sender of a change of email address.

The email is 'backed up' using IMAP on a laptop. The desktop has a full copy, the laptop kept elsewhere has a full copy, the server has a full copy. The server has mirrored (RAID1?) disks so can recover from a single disk failure.

It works for me. But I can't say it makes a case for others to follow.
 

Offline BradC

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Re: The case for self hosting a email server. Is there one?
« Reply #34 on: May 13, 2021, 12:05:36 pm »
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.

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.
 

Offline JustMeHere

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Re: The case for self hosting a email server. Is there one?
« Reply #35 on: May 19, 2021, 03:43:56 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.

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.

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.
 

Offline peter-h

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Re: The case for self hosting a email server. Is there one?
« Reply #36 on: July 10, 2021, 08:11:48 pm »
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.

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