Need advice for running my own mail server.

KuJoe

@texteditor said:
I think the point I'm meandering towards that email itself is broken and terrible and will continue to break because we are doomed forever to implement an unending stream of RFCs to make a protocol designed at its inception for a world without assholes work in our dimension. I say leave that to someone else

I think you're right. During my testing today I fell down the rabbit hole of DKIM which was correctly configured on my domain but 1 of the tests marked my test e-mail as failed for not having a signed DKIM while the other 2 marked it as passed as having a valid signature... so much for standardization.

texteditor

@KuJoe said:
I think you're right. During my testing today I fell down the rabbit hole of DKIM which was correctly configured on my domain but 1 of the tests marked my test e-mail as failed for not having a signed DKIM while the other 2 marked it as passed as having a valid signature... so much for standardization.

Don't feel bad, I've found that even people who setup DKIM, DMARC, and even plain SPF tend correctly tend to not use it because recipients and senders at the other end are either not checking those things, or worse: letting mail that fails SPF or DKIM checks on through to users anyways because What if it's important?!?!

jsg

@KuJoe said:
Can you provide some details on your setup? What kind of redundancy do you have? Do you have webmail configured in addition to POP3? What are you using for spam and virus scanning?

SMTP and POP3 server, basically same for the backup system, no virus scanner (don't need it), two level spam handling (black list + (my own) script to comfortably deal with adding to the black list. Only temp mail storage (auto delete after fetching) plus classic (own script) file level backup.

@angstrom said:
I still don't see how you can say that there's no significant difference in practice between running a mail server for 5 users vs for 50000 users, which includes configuration + all of the associated issues (incoming and outgoing spam, deliverability, keeping the IP address clean, backups), but I've no doubt missed something, so I give up.

The context was:

@angstrom said:
The difficult (and scary) part would be to do it at scale for a lot of users, but it doesn't sound like this is your goal.

KuJoe

So something I didn't think about until I read some posts in this thread, is redundant SMTP a thing and is there an easy way to implement it? I'm thinking of using my backup MX server as a backup SMTP server and either setting up DNS failover or manually changing the SMTP server in my mail client if my mail server ends up being offline for an significant amount of time.

texteditor

You don't have to even fallback to another server you run, you could fallback to a cname pointed to SendGrid or SES or whoever and just add them to you SPF

texteditor

Also, everyone forgets this lil guy can proxy & failover SMTP and IMAP

jsg

@KuJoe said:
So something I didn't think about until I read some posts in this thread, is redundant SMTP a thing and is there an easy way to implement it? I'm thinking of using my backup MX server as a backup SMTP server and either setting up DNS failover or manually changing the SMTP server in my mail client if my mail server ends up being offline for an significant amount of time.

There are different ways to handle it. One is to "abuse" ETRN and another one (often found with Postfix) that is more elegant is to configure MX90 (the backup server) as a mere relay for all your domains (normally handled by MX10).

Finally for a private system like yours there's also the poor mail admins version of simply setting up all accounts twice (client side), once for the MX10 and once for the MX90.

My personal preferred (and probably the most proper) choice is the relay solution. Keep in mind though that the MX90's hard drive needs to be large enough for the worst expected case email volume (which in your case, based on a 48hrs worst case assumption, might be not insignificant).

jar

I can't get enough mailcow for just that "personal server" setup. But I have to say I still use my own service and I'll tell you why:

KuJoe said: using an SMTP service for better deliverability

Redundant haproxy servers load balancing outbound email to 351 IPs as of this evening (and spinning up more as I feel like it). All running smtp_fallback to outside IP ranges that then run smtp_fallback to MailChannels.

Also, if you want any of my configs, DM me on Slack:
https://mxroute.com/help.html

What's mine is yours.

angstrom

@jsg said: The context was:

@angstrom said:
The difficult (and scary) part would be to do it at scale for a lot of users, but it doesn't sound like this is your goal.

Yes, indeed, that was the context, and you were just being needlessly argumentative again, and I was challenging you on what you said (that there's no significant difference in running a mail server for 5 vs. 50000 users), but you appeared to think that once TLS and POP3 are set up, the job is done.

marrco

mailcow dockerized.

seriously that's the best solution atm for your needs

angstrom

@texteditor said: angstrom said: Whenever I looked at all-in-one mail server solutions in the past, they all seemed to be very invasive ("invasive" in the sense that they take over your system and are difficult to uninstall cleanly), but perhaps I simply didn't have the right attitude. (But if you're using cPanel anyway, then why not ...)

Yeah, it would have to be something you would dedicate it, this is one of those places where docker shines - isolating solutions that want "the whole system"

At the time, admittedly, I didn't seriously consider using a Docker-based solution.

Tripleflix

@marrco said:
mailcow dockerized.

seriously that's the best solution atm for your needs

i have that, works great! as long as u have a clean IP and set up SPF and DKIM right it will send mail just fine.

SplitIce

Funny enough I switched to Google this year to save money. Zimbra needs a pretty decent server/VM unfortunately even at the small scale.

The real kicker however was that I was also able to replace a $40/month backup server with Google Drive with the transition to Gsuite and also reduce the management requirement. TBH that's where the Gsuite solution shines.

KuJoe

SplitIce said: The real kicker however was that I was also able to replace a $40/month backup server with Google Drive with the transition to Gsuite and also reduce the management requirement.

Google One was my most expensive backup at $99.99/year which is one of the reasons I'm moving away from Google as a whole to save money. I'm going to keep their 100GB plan for $19.99/year so I have a place to save my photos and videos (their facial recognition is better than any other I've tried) but I'm still sitting at 89GB used.

KuJoe

As for my mail solution, I think I'm just going to either use the Secure Dragon cPanel server or one of my AFreeCloud servers (DirectAdmin) and call it a day. I'll setup the SMTP relay to prevent outbound spam but aside from that I think I was making this more complex than I needed to.

I checked Mail-in-a-box and other solutions including rolling my own, but after playing around a bit the end results would have been the same so now I only have 1 mail server and IP to maintain and my users will benefit from it also.

I was playing around with the idea of having a high availability setup (multiple VPSs with shared storage) but figured that would be overly complex for my needs and made me realize the less work the better.

jsg

@angstrom said:

@jsg said: The context was:

@angstrom said:
The difficult (and scary) part would be to do it at scale for a lot of users, but it doesn't sound like this is your goal.

Yes, indeed, that was the context, and you were just being needlessly argumentative again, and I was challenging you on what you said (that there's no significant difference in running a mail server for 5 vs. 50000 users), but you appeared to think that once TLS and POP3 are set up, the job is done.

Your post clearly shows that you don't really know what you are talking about, sorry. Setting up TLS and POP3 is the easy part.

And accordingly you (once more) just used a thread trying to look smart while I tried to actually help and doing that based on experience. Even just properly reading this thread could have provided some hints (e.g. DKIM, SPF) to you.

Fact is that setting up an email system and having it work properly and reliably is the major part in terms of knowledge and work. Once one has that it is indeed no major issue whether that system serves 2 domains or 200, 5 users or tens of thousands. That, quantity, is merely legwork low level staff can do and a large part of it can be automated, too.

skorous

jsg said: That, quantity, is merely legwork low level staff can do and a large part of it can be automated, too.

And here I think is where we get to the crux of the disagreement. You're hand-waving away an awful lot of "legwork" assuming he has low-level staff to just delegate things to and therefore it's no more work. It is more work whether he is or is not doing it, no?

angstrom

@jsg said:

@angstrom said:

@jsg said: The context was:

@angstrom said:
The difficult (and scary) part would be to do it at scale for a lot of users, but it doesn't sound like this is your goal.

Yes, indeed, that was the context, and you were just being needlessly argumentative again, and I was challenging you on what you said (that there's no significant difference in running a mail server for 5 vs. 50000 users), but you appeared to think that once TLS and POP3 are set up, the job is done.

Your post clearly shows that you don't really know what you are talking about, sorry. Setting up TLS and POP3 is the easy part.

And accordingly you (once more) just used a thread trying to look smart while I tried to actually help and doing that based on experience. Even just properly reading this thread could have provided some hints (e.g. DKIM, SPF) to you.

Fact is that setting up an email system and having it work properly and reliably is the major part in terms of knowledge and work. Once one has that it is indeed no major issue whether that system serves 2 domains or 200, 5 users or tens of thousands. That, quantity, is merely legwork low level staff can do and a large part of it can be automated, too.

You keep switching the context. The original context was one person (not a team of people) running a mail server for 5 vs 50000 users. You claim that there's no significant difference in effort required. Since this claim is by all appearances highly dubious, you should argue that (despite appearances) there's actually no significant difference in effort for the one person involved. You keep failing to argue this, and instead keep switching the context to fit your narrative.

jsg

@skorous said:

jsg said: That, quantity, is merely legwork low level staff can do and a large part of it can be automated, too.

And here I think is where we get to the crux of the disagreement. You're hand-waving away an awful lot of "legwork" assuming he has low-level staff to just delegate things to and therefore it's no more work. It is more work whether he is or is not doing it, no?

Sure it's more work. But how far do we want to extend the meaning of "installing and configuring an email system"? Should it also include issues like "many users equals lots of support calls"?

The question was how difficult it is to install and configure an email system. The response is almost the same for a system serving 1 domain and 5 users as it is for many domains and many users.
There is a difference, yes, but that difference is a mostly quantitative one that is relevant after the installation and configuration of the system.

angstrom

@jsg said: The question was how difficult it is to install and configure an email system.

No, that wasn't the question.

jsg

@angstrom said:
You keep switching the context. The original context was one person (not a team of people) running a mail server for 5 vs 50000 users. You claim that there's no significant difference in effort required. Since this claim is by all appearances highly dubious, you should argue that (despite appearances) there's actually no significant difference in effort for the one person involved. You keep failing to argue this, and instead keep switching the context to fit your narrative.

No. The original question (from OP) was about a system for himself (and maybe family).
Then you introduced a multi-domain, many users scenario ->

@angstrom said:
The difficult (and scary) part would be to do it at scale for a lot of users, but it doesn't sound like this is your goal.

and made that (wrong) statement. I picked up on it in a short side note. As you followed up, insisting that you are right, I responded.

The last state can be found in my last response to @skorous, particularly in the last sentence.

@angstrom said:

@jsg said: The question was how difficult it is to install and configure an email system.

No, that wasn't the question.

Sure. Whatever you say ...

angstrom

@jsg: The only bloody reason that I'm arguing with you is because I said P and you said that I was wrong and that not-P is the case, assuming the context in question (that of one person running a mail server for 5 vs 50000 users). You should have argued that not-P is the case, but you kept failing to do so, citing irrelevant factors instead. In your reply to @skorous, though, you concede that P is the case after all, so I rest my case.

(Maybe try to be less gratuitously argumentative next time.)

jsg

@angstrom said:
@jsg: The only bloody reason that I'm arguing with you is because I said P and you said that I was wrong and that not-P is the case, assuming the context in question (that of one person running a mail server for 5 vs 50000 users). You should have argued that not-P is the case, but you kept failing to do so, citing irrelevant factors instead. In your reply to @skorous, though, you concede that P is the case after all, so I rest my case.

(Maybe try to be less gratuitously argumentative next time.)

Nice try - but wrong. Hint: I emphasised the word "after" intentionally.

The point you fail to get is setup/config vs running. Running an email systems with many domains and many, many users requires indeed considerably more effort than one for one domain and a couple of users.

But that was not the point. The point, and accordingly my statements, was setting up and configuring an email system. And there the difference is indeed small.

Unlike you I know that for a fact. Because I have actually done it.

Yura

hugging @angstrom

jsg

@Yura said:
hugging @angstrom

Yeah, yeah, I know ... I'm too ugly to be hugged. I'm used to it. It's always the others who look at least somewhat like humans who get all the love ...

Yura

I didn't plan for threesome today but what the heck...

hugging @jsg

angstrom

Pleased to announce that @jsg and I have made peace in PM.

Thanks to @Yura for the hug.

jsg

@Yura said:
I didn't plan for threesome today but what the heck...

hugging @jsg

shriek You PERVERT cat! (secretely enjoying it)

SirFoxy

m e o w

Jona4s

anyone knows if OVH/Hetzner vps block port 25?