Hey-ho 👋
What is the best approach for selfhosting an email server with static IP or blocked port 25?
I’ve done it many times in many different ways, now doing it again and want to hear what is the best approach these days
My port 25 isn’t even probably blocked, I just prefer to use my vps to help it with this stuff
Any suggestions?
email is one of the only services i just gave up on (after rolling my own exchange for over a decade). its too annoyingly complex, tedious to do correctly for just yourself. its not worth it.
I do it not really for myself, slow and steady i’m converting everyone I know to using my services
Sounds impossible, but some people already are using almost the whole suite and are happy. More and more people are asking if they can join.
The global sentiment is moving towards “tired of google”, “tired of paying for bad services”
Self hosting email on non-mission critical domain for learning purposes might be okay if your intention is to get into the industry. Self hosting email for others on more production like setting you’re going to find yourself in a world of pain.
All it takes is one missed email (be it not making into their intended recipient’s inbox, or them not receiving an important notice in their inbox) and you’re never going to hear the end of it.
You’d also be liable for content your users send out from your servers — and I don’t mean the spam type, though if you get your IP blacklisted, your provider may want to have a word with you.
I’d strongly advise against going down this path, but if you do, be sure to have ways to legally shield yourself from any sort of potential liabilities.
No problem, the world of pain is my hometown
I do not understand why everyone calling hosting email difficult? IT is like 5 RFC you need to read and implement. Sofware wise you will need mail agent, something for DKIM ( if it not build in in agent), “local delivery agent” ( probably presenting it as IMAP) + mail reader of your choice. Nothing too complex
The complex part isn’t the hosting part. Its the security part, the reputation management part, the uptime part, the troubleshooting delivery part and basically every other aspect other than running postfix+dovecot
It’s not complicated until your reputation drops for a multitude of reasons, many not even directly your fault.
Neighboring bad acting IPs, too many automated emails sent out while you were testing, compromised account, or pretty much any number of things means everyone on your domain is hosed. And email is critical.
Hosting your own email is a bad idea. Hosting OTHER PEOPLE’S email is a REALLY BAD idea. Self-hosting mail on a vanity domain is a good exercise to learn how SMTP, DNS, IMAP and other protocols interact.
If you don’t like Google, Apple, or Microsoft then sign them up with Proton or another hosted provider. You don’t want to be the reason someone lost income because they missed out on a critical email from a client or their job application was blocked because it was sent from a host with poor reputation.