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Best way to configure VPS for emails?
Hi,
I have configured a VPS for an ecommerce site. It's a new site and I do not expect a lot of traffic initially. Currently I am using postfix and ZOHO (free plan) to send out emails.
Do you think this is a reliable way to send emails to customers or should I set up an email server to send emails?
Any ideas?
Appreciate your help
Thanks
Comments
Anyone? Hope I didn't ask a wrong question.
Don't worry, you didn't ask a wrong question
. I think continuing with ZOHO should be fine. If its been working for you, I wouldn't switch.
I would agree. If going out of your way to ensure a quality email reputation for your IPs doesn't sound like your definition of a good time, leave it to those who enjoy it. Zoho runs a good service from what I hear. Most people end up only frustrated by running their own mail server. Also, depending on your website infrastructure of choice, an ecommerce site may need all the CPU and memory you can throw at it. I'm looking at you, magento.
I'm a little apprehensive about using ZOHO for an automated e-commerce site - since that is not what ZOHO was designed for. You might see your messages going to spam. I would recommend something like Mailgun (free for 10,000 emails a month).
I configured Mailgun to work with postfix on all my non-mail-servers (so they can email me notifications). You can also have Mailgun forward your emails to any other address. I even have a script.
But as @ShadowPhase said, you should be fine with your current set up. I personally would not recommend setting up a email server just to send mail (since the point of a mail server is to store mail as well, any server can send it).
@jarland
Yup its a magento installation. Do you know if ZOHO has any limitations? I had tried contacting them last week but didn't get any response. Also I read in their forums that they would block the account after 10 email bounce.
@Silvenga
Mailgun looks good. I'll check it out.
Yes, Mailgun. Been using them for a while, nothing bother my mind.
Use a service like Sendgrid. 200 emails per day. Easily scalable to support any future email infrastructure you would require.
As an alternative to postfix I use ssmpt to send out e-mails. It is very simple to setup and has a low memory footprint (no server processes at all). See here for instructions: http://blog.bokhorst.biz/6507/computers-and-internet/how-to-setup-a-vps-as-web-server/#setup_email
@M66B
That link has almost everything on setting up a VPS. Thank you so much.
@lavgupta: yes it has, I use it myself if I need to setup a new VPS each time, which I even recently did. I update it each time I find something that needs to be changed and when I learn something. If you have suggestions or questions, please let me know, maybe I can learn even something more.
@M66B
Sure I'm going to go through it tomorrow. It's almost 5:30am here. I'm still learning and post like these are very helpful.
Regarding ssmtp, you should be aware that there's no mail queue. That means one attempt is made to deliver a message, and if for any reason the attempt fails then the message is placed in a dead.letter file and it's up to you to figure it out. There's lots of reasons a mail delivery attempt might fail, like a temporary network issue, or greylisting on the recipient server. ssmtp is nice but it's not a substitute for a proper mail daemon. It a solution of last resort IMO.
@sleddog absolutely true, but it is a solution if you want to use as little as possible memory and in my experience almost nothing goes into dead.letter if you use the Google mail servers and the connectivity is okay. It also depends on the importance of the e-mails you need to send. In my case it are mostly notifications that there is a new WordPress comment or similar, which isn't a drama if one gets lost.
@sleddog
Thanks for raising that point. Delivery is important in my case. It will have the order summary and shipping info. I'll use ssmtp for my other VPS with wordpress blog.
An exim4 daemon runs in about 400 kB of RAM.
I have updated the earlier referenced setup guide with installation instructions for nullmailer, which has an outgoing message queue, is very easy to setup and has a low memory footprint. It runs a small daemon that retries to deliver failed messages.
For the record: nullmailer uses less then 1/4 of the memory compared to exim4.
A savings of 300 kB hardly seems worth the effort
That depends on the actual memory used and how tight your memory is (this is LET after all ;-) I have yet to see Exim4 use 400 Kb, in my tests it used a lot more. Also installing nullmailer is a breeze, Exim4 is a little bit more complicated, although not very hard.
Tested Zoho previously and a lot of mail delivery issues occurred. It's a great service for incoming emails. Especially a boost in the Security. as there is no worry about constantly having to tighten the security or patch the Mail Server software installed. I currently use a standard mail setup this includes iredmail for incoming only. and for outgoing I use mandrillapp as it offers a good delivery rate @ 100% currently it has achieved 99.94% delivery over the past 30 days.
Used to use postfix to deliver direct from my servers my emails in the past but had a lot of problems with the rept of my ip's (although they didn't blacklisted, their low reputation caused mostly in ms mails -live/hotmail etc.- being flagged). I use mandrill and mailgun and I prefer mailgun for better delivery rate although it has less features.