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Email server on a VPS?
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Email server on a VPS?

sanvitsanvit Member

Is hosting an email server on a VPS a bad idea? I'm thinking of installing VestaCP or any other kind of email management software and adding a MX Backup service just in case. Will this be a bad idea? Will the mails go to spam folder? And, Can you recommend good but cheap Backup MX service?

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Comments

  • dedicadosdedicados Member
    edited March 2017

    sanvit said: Will the mails go to spam folder?

    no if you set all correctly.

    DKIM, SPF, rDNS for ip, also if ip is blacklisted or not.

    in the tutorial section i see two instructions or apps you can try:
    https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/99960/easy-mail-server-installation#latest
    https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/63374/setting-up-your-own-email-server-web-server#latest

    or use this one:
    https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-run-your-own-mail-server-with-mail-in-a-box-on-ubuntu-14-04

  • I use iredmail. Nice stack of software. :D

  • VestaCP or VirtualMin are great
    personally I prefer VirtualMin I think it will use less resources and will configure everything
    you will need to install DKIM from the virtualmin and enable signing outgoing emails
    for all my servers the emails goes direct to the inbox.
    just note that each company have their own system to catch the spam according to the text and the links on the message body , the domain name , the username of the email (the first part) and also the IP ,
    but generally as @dedicados said the most important is that

    dedicados said: DKIM, SPF, rDNS for ip, also if ip is blacklisted or not.

  • WSSWSS Member

    First, what our Spanish robot said.

    Then, make sure you have a backup MX, and you'll be fine.

    What people don't understand these days is that SMTP was never intended to be instant. It was made to gracefully (kinda) fail, and requeue. Setup a secondary MX with a lower priority as a relay, and even if your primary VPS fails, you'll eventually get your mail when you fix that.

    Thanked by 2dedicados vimalware
  • mailcheapmailcheap Member, Host Rep

    Its a bad idea to base your entire mail suite on a VPS (or two) but not entirely bad when its a cloud server with instance recovery. And that is the thing with email; its something we take for granted and when you're relying on it to conduct business or even just personal communication, most often you cannot afford for it to be down or have deliverability issues, etc.

    Is it easy to install an email stack with installers/open source projects? Sure, all it takes is a one-liner. Is it easy to troubleshoot the complex email stack that you just installed in a single command. No. It depends on how much time and money you're willing to invest into this. Not only do you have to spend time configuring the management software, but it really takes a lot of time and effort understanding the fundamentals of email like Postfix/Dovecot (SMTP/IMAP)/AVAS services and how to troubleshoot them in case of any issues. Unless you're going with a supported and expensive enterprise solution, all the other open source projects don't guarantee a trouble free management panel/email experience.

    Now there are the more important aspects of running a mailserver like data protection, offsite backups, geo-redundant backup MX to queue messages in case of primary server being offline, quality SMTP relays with rotating IPs that can resend hard rejects for guaranteed deliverability, outbound/inbound filtration to fight spam/viruses, etc.

    If email is truly important to you, then your email stack should be active-active redundant every step of the way. From the DNS to SMTP/IMAP services, database and storage backends, frontend web services, filters, relays, queuing relays et al. Every part of the stack should be able to tank a complete failure/loss and should still be able to go on without taking down the mail service.

    If this is something you're after, then we offer just the right solution: Premium Mail that doesn't limit you per user/mo. (unlimited domains/users) and comes with a 99.999% uptime SLA. And the best part is you can get it for less than $5/mo. with the offer. It'll take more than that to get two LE VPS.

    Pavin.

    Thanked by 1vimalware
  • M66BM66B Veteran
    edited March 2017

    I have been hesitant to run my own e-mail server for a long time, but I am glad I finally did. I didn't wanted to deal with managing the IP regarding outbound e-mail, so I have chosen to send outbound e-mail via Sparkhost and not via via the e-mail server, which is in my idea a nice balance between having your own e-mail sever and the management involved.

    @mailcheap is right about using a cloud server, an instant solution and backups, so better learn how things work, so that you can setup things the right way and fix things when something unexpected happens. However, there is no need to go struggling with "quality SMTP relays with rotating IPs that can resend hard rejects for guaranteed deliverability, outbound/inbound filtration to fight spam/viruses, etc.", if you use a provider like Sparkhost, Sendgrid or similar for outbound e-mails. Most of these providers offer a free plan of thousands of messages per month, which will likely be more than enough for personal use. Moreover, most e-mail providers, likely including @mailcheap, limit outbound e-mail to a few dozen e-mails a day to prevent spam, so you are likely even better off. Also, you can trace your outbound e-mail using the dashboard of these providers, which is a nice bonus.

    I am using the combo opensmtpd (which is a great piece of software and simple to setup reducing the chances for mistakes, although the details do matter), rspamd (I didn't wanted to use the perl based Spamassassin) and Dovecot (which is also a great piece of software and not difficult to setup). Rainloop is a plain, simple, efficient front-end to manage your e-mail.

    I took me some time to get everything, including mail filtering (Sieve), working on a test domain / test server, but it was really fun to do and I would like to encourage anyone to learn something new. You can always decide later if you are confident enough to use it for your daily e-mail.

    Note that you won't find a guide for the combo I am using (especially rspamd in between opensmtpd and dovecot). Maybe I will write one down if there is enough interest.

    Thanked by 1mfs
  • Well most of the replies here have been helpful minus an obvious self-promotion but in the past year running Mailcow, have never had an issue and I switched from Google Apps after being locked out of my account for 3 days without any reason and not much details from Gmail as to why it happened.

    When you sign up for a provider, make sure to do all the due diligence to check for IP blacklisting as some blacklists will list a /24 for what one IP or a few IPs do. As previously mentioned, setup SPF/DKIM/rDNS and you'll be fine.

    Thanked by 3Yura WSS vimalware
  • M66BM66B Veteran

    @doughmanes said:
    Well most of the replies here have been helpful minus an obvious self-promotion

    I am wondering when the derailing starts ...

    Thanked by 1doughmanes
  • aaraya1516aaraya1516 Member
    edited March 2017

    https://mxtoolbox.com/ is one useful tool when setting up your own mail server

  • mailcheapmailcheap Member, Host Rep

    @M66B Like I said, ultimately it comes down to how much time and money someone is willing to invest into this. Setting up a mailserver from scratch for the first time can be a rewarding experience but running the show for an year or more, that initial excitement won't last. Then its a matter of keeping this running and making sure it keeps performing even when you might not have remote access to fix things. Even well behaved programs like Postfix and Dovecot can act in an errant way sometimes leading to errors. Proper monitoring, actual written down procedures you can refer to, etc. are the little things that make a real difference in running a stable and reliable mail service in the long run; and this kind of perspective you can only get from running a whole lot of mailservers.

    Pavin.

  • I absolutely love running my own services as it gives me more control and you get your learning curve up. I played with mail servers quite a lot as I want to know how things work. For anything I'm actually using I use paid services though. I'd rather have someone with the right experience and expertise handling that. I think mail is important enough to pay for these days.

    The obvious provider comes to mind but you probably know who that is. It's nice to have a service at hand you can just rely on and use out of the box whenever you need it.

    So no, running it on a VPS is not a bad idea but for me it's just not worth it.

    Thanked by 1WSS
  • M66BM66B Veteran
    edited March 2017

    @mailcheap said:
    @M66B Like I said, ultimately it comes down to how much time and money someone is willing to invest into this. Setting up a mailserver from scratch for the first time can be a rewarding experience but running the show for an year or more, that initial excitement won't last. Then its a matter of keeping this running and making sure it keeps performing even when you might not have remote access to fix things. Even well behaved programs like Postfix and Dovecot can act in an errant way sometimes leading to errors. Proper monitoring, actual written down procedures you can refer to, etc. are the little things that make a real difference in running a stable and reliable mail service in the long run; and this kind of perspective you can only get from running a whole lot of mailservers.

    I guess you are repeating suggesting each time how difficult things are in the interest of your own business, like you already did many times before here. Maybe it is time to contribute something significant/interesting for a change here.

    It is not so difficult as you are trying to suggest, at least not with opensmtpd and dovecot and using Sparkhost or a similar provider for outbound e-mail. To prevent discussion about this I will provide all my opensmtpd and dovecot config minus external tables (which are trivial).

    Note that there is no need for DKIM, SPF, DMARC, managing your IP, etc in this setup, which greatly simplifies things.

    opensmtpd: https://gist.github.com/M66B/e8757f8bab1dfd4cc609c2f91b7db8d4

    dovecot: https://gist.github.com/M66B/d6c12e53351d21c3bbbfbe09bb0a224d

    And yes, this is really all config.

    Note that this might be the first time somebody writes down how to call rspamc (part of rspamd) from opensmtpd.

  • mailcheapmailcheap Member, Host Rep

    @doughmanes said:
    Well most of the replies here have been helpful minus an obvious self-promotion but in the past year running Mailcow, have never had an issue and I switched from Google Apps after being locked out of my account for 3 days without any reason and not much details from Gmail as to why it happened.

    When you sign up for a provider, make sure to do all the due diligence to check for IP blacklisting as some blacklists will list a /24 for what one IP or a few IPs do. As previously mentioned, setup SPF/DKIM/rDNS and you'll be fine.

    WHT squad? ;)

    But tbh, setting up just anti-forgery and rDNS is not even scratching the surface when it comes to deliverability. What I've seen from experience is that DKIM/DMARC doesn't even make an actual difference in deliverability unless you're sending tens of thousands of emails. Deliverability goes way beyond just setting up some tools that any spammer can employ.

    Pavin.

  • mailcheapmailcheap Member, Host Rep

    @M66B said:
    I guess you are repeating how difficult things are in the interest of your own business, like you already did many times before here. Maybe it is time to contribute something significant/interesting for a change here.

    Can you refer to where I said it was difficult? Try not to twist my words. It only depends on OP's time and money and can even be a rewarding experience the first time is what I said and believe it or not, a few config files or installer doesn't make a stable mail service.

    Pavin.

  • I'm currently hosting my e-mail services on an Online.net 7 Euro/Month Dedicated server and it's been fairly reliable so far. Personally I'd recommend Mailinabox rather than VestaCP or VirtualMin.

  • @mailcheap said:
    Setting up a mailserver from scratch for the first time can be a rewarding experience but running the show for an year or more, that initial excitement won't last.

    I set my own email server up and after the initial excitement wore off it still works and I do virtually nothing to keep it that way other than the usual software updates. (Very occassionally I tweak things so it filters spam, etc. better but otherwise it's a set-it-and-forget-it thing.)

    Then its a matter of keeping this running and making sure it keeps performing even when you might not have remote access to fix things.

    I would imagine everyone has difficulty keeping this running when they do not have access to it. Even your own services would be impossible to manage if you didn't have access to it.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you provide a needed service that operates fine. But if a person just wants to set up their own email server it's not like it's some super difficult 40 hr/week task to keep things running. It might be for larger organizations because they have to deal with a larger user base (e.g. more accounts that could potentially be compromised, more users not sure how to set things up, more servers to handle the load, etc.). But if you're a single user or small business you can run your own server with a few hours of work upfront and not much thereafter.

    A lot of people on LET seem to push the idea the running an email server is a significant task. It's definitely a lot more work than a LAMP or LEMP stack, but it's not at all some unsurmountable goal.

    Thanked by 1M66B
  • Bro. We get it. You self-promote contrary to the OP's question. No need to get mad about it.

  • M66BM66B Veteran

    @mailcheap said:

    @M66B said:
    I guess you are repeating how difficult things are in the interest of your own business, like you already did many times before here. Maybe it is time to contribute something significant/interesting for a change here.

    Can you refer to where I said it was difficult? Try not to twist my words. It only depends on OP's time and money and can even be a rewarding experience the first time is what I said and believe it or not, a few config files or installer doesn't make a stable mail service.

    Pavin.

    You didn't say that and I have fixed that in my previous comment, but don't tell me you are not suggesting this, which you are doing by mentioning each and every detail that needs to be addressed.

  • yes its a very bad idea, i will effect your domain reputation as well.

  • M66BM66B Veteran

    @jagdish said:
    yes its a very bad idea, i will effect your domain reputation as well.

    Not in my solution, but enlighten me if I am wrong.

  • He just signed up and trying to get his provider tag

  • Guys @mailcheap provide manged mail hosting and he has some hands on exp on these thing but he is a good providers and member. He is just commenting his opinion with an plug so lets leave it there.

    @OP If you up for an adventure then running a mail server may server you best.'

    But if you need an service that works and need a soul to crush when its not then managed may server you.

    IMHO I have combination of managed and self-managed mail

    For personal or some place holder email i tend to stick with self-managed but for slightly important mail i have used managed mostly from Mxroute and Zoho

    But in any case if i need some thing with HA that's within my budget then i will go with @mailcheap eyes closed.

    so if you need the following features & SLA then go with @mailcheap if else you need simple email that servers an MX and use direct SMTP from sendgrid then setup an Mailserver yourself. But its not hard as rocket science.

    Features

    Web-based Admin Panel
    Cross DC Active-Active redundancy
    High performance servers
    Failover in <2 min (90s avg.)
    Triple data replication
    Geo-redundant dual backup MX
    99.999% uptime SLA
    Webmail (SOGo) with 50 MB attachments
    Integrated Webmail, Calendar & Contacts w/ ActiveSync
    SMTP (Premium Relay)
    Advanced anti-spam & anti-virus protection
    Professional Anti-DDoS protection
    Free setup & migration (1 file)
    SPF, DKIM, DMARC support
    Direct-Admin™ support
    
    Thanked by 2mailcheap vimalware
  • mailcheapmailcheap Member, Host Rep

    @M66B said:

    @mailcheap said:

    @M66B said:
    I guess you are repeating how difficult things are in the interest of your own business, like you already did many times before here. Maybe it is time to contribute something significant/interesting for a change here.

    Can you refer to where I said it was difficult? Try not to twist my words. It only depends on OP's time and money and can even be a rewarding experience the first time is what I said and believe it or not, a few config files or installer doesn't make a stable mail service.

    Pavin.

    You didn't say that and I have fixed that in my previous comment, but don't tell me you are not suggesting this, which you are doing by mentioning each and every detail that needs to be addressed.

    Ofc I'm suggesting my service Cpt. Obvious because at the end of the day its cheaper and better than what you're suggesting.

    Pavin.

  • mailcheap said: Ofc I'm suggesting my service Cpt. Obvious because at the end of the day its cheaper and better than what you're suggesting.

    Pavin.

    Don't throw stones when this is an obvious "help" discussion and not "requests"

  • M66BM66B Veteran
    edited March 2017

    @mailcheap said:

    @M66B said:

    @mailcheap said:

    @M66B said:
    I guess you are repeating how difficult things are in the interest of your own business, like you already did many times before here. Maybe it is time to contribute something significant/interesting for a change here.

    Can you refer to where I said it was difficult? Try not to twist my words. It only depends on OP's time and money and can even be a rewarding experience the first time is what I said and believe it or not, a few config files or installer doesn't make a stable mail service.

    Pavin.

    You didn't say that and I have fixed that in my previous comment, but don't tell me you are not suggesting this, which you are doing by mentioning each and every detail that needs to be addressed.

    Ofc I'm suggesting my service Cpt. Obvious because at the end of the day its cheaper and better than what you're suggesting.

    Pavin.

    Just tell me how your service can be cheaper than a few euro's a month (1) for unlimited e-mail addresses and unlimited domains and how it would be better (still assuming the use of Sparkpost or a similar e-mail provider for outbound e-mail, which is basically free as well). I don't think you can in an objective way. In my vision you are still trying to promote your service (which I have nothing against BTW).

    (1) Even the cheapest OVH VPS with 10GB RAID10 storage would do and assuming people here likely will have one or more servers already anyway, it would be basically for free. For me it was a zero investment in any case.

    Thanked by 1doughmanes
  • @m66b yes , you are right .. But if you sending emails from VPS better take sendgrid software support..

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    dedicados said: DKIM, SPF, rDNS for ip, also if ip is blacklisted or not.

    Just one correction. Most, if not all, do not filter to spam folders based on blacklists. RBLs are typically used for rejecting email, but not for categorizing it. So you should feel safe in knowing that if a provider accepts your email, your listing on an RBL is not relevant to whatever happens afterward.

    Thanked by 2simonindia Falzo
  • M66BM66B Veteran

    @jagdish said:
    @m66b yes , you are right .. But if you sending emails from VPS better take sendgrid software support..

    Isn't that what I have been suggesting?

  • @m66b right )

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