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What is required to send receive email from VPS
I am planning to get an unmanaged VPS. My question is what is required to send and receive email by my site which will be hosted on that VPS?
Suppose I have a domain www.testing.com which I got from some domain provider. I am hosting this domain on VPS which I got from company A.
I assume I will have to install and configure mail server (looking for some good free mail server software) on my VPS to send receive email correct? Is there anything else required for e.g. buying service from some provider to relay emails or something!?
Comments
https://mailcow.email/
Install this, no need to pay for anything else other than your domain and your VPS.
A MTA is usually a good idea.
You don't need an email server. Search for mail relay.
You need a VPS provider who is willing to leave port 25 open on your VPS. Then you need Postfix or Exim and whatever else you want in your set up.
You Assume Right. Just install those free panel (cwp, kloxo-mr, vestacp) and you're good to go.
No.
You need one more thing no one hasn't listed aside from making sure there's enough ram in the VPS your ordering, rDNS. Quite a bit of email providers will reject emails from IPs that do not have rDNS set or it's a default one like someip.host.someprovider.com.
Thanks for the input guys. Actually I plan on installing a forum software like mybb, vanilla etc. which will generate emails. Plus I also want to be able to receive emails from users at [email protected] so this was the reason for mail server.
@6ixth This looks good
@WSS My knowlede is limited but doesn't MTA require some email relay to work?
@sarah I guess mail relay is not free and I have to buy this service correct?
@dcamero Don't all VPS provider leave port 25 open like DigitalOcean, Vultr etc.?
@Edmond I hope rDNS is part of that mail server setup i.e. it doesn't require additional software or does it?
It depends on the host really. You might want to open a ticket to ask before ordering if the website doesn't show it. Hosts either allow you to set it in Solusvm (if they use that), have you open ticket for change, or don't offer it. It's not a software you install, it's more something your host has to setup.
I assume this is for an app to send emails. If so all you need to do is to configure it to send mails via mail relay like send grid, postmark etc. Most of them have a free tier. Search for transactional mail relay. You don't need port 25 open since mail relay usually can work with 465 or 587. You also don't need rdns or postfix or anything if you relay email.
In addition to rdns you may want to set up some txt records.
rDNS is very important, as if you haven't set up SPF yet it uses that as a proxy along with domain reputation.
Can all these configuration you guys are talking about be done in DigitalOcean or Vultur VPS?
Yes, rDNS is part of mail server setup. Usually that part involving asking your host to set your rDNS. it's easy. as long as your host want to help you. Most of the time, you can't set your rDNS yourself.
If you're just sending mail from a forum, I suggest using MailGun. They give you SMTP details + whatever you need to configure sending for your forum. They have really good delivery (as in it's reliable), and mail never lands in spam.
It's 10K emails free/mo.
But what about receiving emails? Because I may create one or two accounts for like [email protected], [email protected] so please suggest a solution for this.
Oh and I plan on using hosting provider's nameservers in my domain if it helps.
You can use Zoho which allows both receiving and sending emails through free plan as well.
To receive email simply use dovecot
In that case, I suggest Zoho as well. Although you can receive mail through MailGun, it isn't really meant for that purpose.
An MTA is the "Mail Transfer Agent". Postfix, Sendmail, OpenSMTPd, et al.
Some folks install sSMTP, and set it up to use a gmail account as a relay. That way you don't actually have to care/feed for a mailserver if it's only outgoing.
To send we use aws ses
use @jarland mxroute. It can send, it can receive.
Yes, what yokowasis said. I'm a self-hosting zealot but email has become one of those things where it's better to just pay someone else to do it, and live to fight another day.
just out of curiosity, what exactly does rDNS do ?
It makes it so your name matches, e.g. this is your PRIMARY hostname and will resolve to. Kind of like caller ID, but a bit more difficult to spoof.
I don't get it , I once set up a server without proper rDNS configured, yet I was still be able to send and receive mail?
Yes, you can send and receive mails, but its a big question-mark whether other mail servers will accept your mail or spam-can it.
Scenario 1:
Sever 1: Hi, who are you?
Server 2: I'm localhost!
Serve r1: Alright, let me check with 8.8.8.8 to see if that's true.
Server 1: Lol you're not localhost? Why you lying? You're shady, I might reject this email or filter it to a spam folder. If this arrives in someone's inbox, count your blessings.
Scenario 2:
Server 1: Hi, who are you?
Server 2: I'm mail.customerdomain.com!
Server 1: Alright, let me check with 8.8.8.8 to see if that's true.
Server 1: When I check 8.8.8.8 it says that you claim to be mail.customerdomain.com, and that mail.customerdomain.com says it's you. So you're legit. Welcome!
Get it?
Got it.
Thanks for detailed explanation