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Need a Mail Relay From Home - Best Way?
I have a few servers and systems at home that need to send mail - e.g, if my Synology blows a disk, if one of my linux box's jobs fails, etc.
My ISP blocks port 25 and I can't send email directly from home to my gmail.
Here's what I've done...
(1) I have a 128MB BuyVM box running which runs postfix
(2) I have one Linux box at home that is set to relay all mail to that BuyVM VPS (the relayhost directive in postfix's main.cf)
(3) The BuyVM box has a cron job that does a dynamic DNS lookup (via afraid.org dyndns) and sets or updates an iptables rule that only accepts port 587 traffic from my home IP
The home Linux box doesn't do any kind of authentication - I'm relying on iptables to block all 587 traffic from other hosts.
Here is what it looks like...forgive my crude art:
Questions:
(1) Am I vulnerable to any kind of attacks or in danger of becoming an open relay? The BuyVM VPS only allows port 587 from my home IP + ssh on a random high port.
(2) Is there something better? If there is a service out there that I could just plug in instead of running my own VPS, that would be one less thing to manage.
As info, we're talking less than 5 emails a day, and I am always the only recipient.
Comments
Why not just Amazon SES or your own GMail account (afaik GMail also works on port 587)? That would be the just plug-and-go solution. Or I could give you access to my personal email server with rate limits (email either goes through SES or MailChannels)
I just use mailgun or some other free relay (at your email level) with https://marlam.de/msmtp/ so just localhost sendmail works.
I hadn't realized that Amazon SES had a free tier...that looks like a solid choice.
Er, actually I guess they don't - it's only free if you're sending mail from EC2. But 10 cents for 1,000 emails plus 12 cents per GB (mine are all tiny) isn't outrageous either.
Actually, that free tier only works with mails sent from EC2 instances. And you also get charged for regular data transfer fees (SES to internet). Still pretty cheap IMO
Under $1 or $2 they don't bother billing you. It'll just roll over until it adds up to enough that the credit card fee is worth it.
Fastmail may be a bit pricey at $50 per year but you get what you pay for I think.
Anyway - maybe there's a cheaper alternative that does this "one wierd trick" to get around blocked port numbers:
https://www.fastmail.com/help/technical/servernamesandports.html
I'm relaying emails from my home boxes via MXRoute.
I personally, use Pigeons.
Always delivered straight to inbox.
Less than an hour later, I've got SES working like a charm. Thanks @sanvit! 1,000 LETCoins for you.
I considered that and have one of @jarland's mad cybermonday promos...but after spending 30 minutes on the site and following tutorials, I couldn't figure out how to access the portal. His tutorials are either a wee bit out of date or my account is so old that it needs some TLC. I need to open a ticket.
Yup. You're really outdated. You can join MXroute's slack for support or go to portal.mxroute.com to manage your account (or just PM @jar ). iirc tickets are no longer available
Thanks
There should be a "login to cpanel" button in the client area of the main mxroute site, that'll automatically log you in. Alternatively you should have gotten an initial email with the subject, "[MXroute] Important Account Information", which has all the relevant account info.
I got that email...in 2014 :-) I posted my Q on MXroute slack. Thanks.
Sendgrid never disappoint me, try it
You're telling me you don't save every single email you've ever received in your existence? Fair enough :P
We also allow you to relay, using MailChannels. ;-)
If you have a MXRoute account, then that would probably work best. BuyShared $8/yr plan would work well too since Fran includes MailChannels with it now.
Oh Jeez, @jar has replaced support tickets with slack? I'd really rather not sign up with slack. I'm into low end services partly to stay AWAY from giant corporate ones, of which slack is now one. Jar I hope you can figure out something else at some point.
Meanwhile I see mxroute still uses cpanel... I wonder if that will stay around under the new pricing, given how little of its functionality is being used.
You can always use PM, and iirc there was a faq style discourse. Louis on slack told me they are working on Wildduck email with a custom panel
Yeah I read it too and I hope @jar does it. Seems to be fantastic.
Amen, brother. It's thoroughly nauseating how large corporations have taken over Internet commons. Forums? Everyone uses FB groups. Email? Why not use slack so every message you send archived away on one company's servers. etc.
It is grimly hilarious to me how quickly the Internet has been perverted into concentrated power. But then, I never did think much of humans anyway.
Most shared hosts setup port 26 redirection for this reason, I have had that running since 2011.
Just as another option for you.
As far as I know msmtp has no message queuing, so messages might get lost if they can't be sent immediately, for example due to connection problems, the server temporarily being unavailable, etc.
Exim4 is easy to setup and has message queuing, so depending on the use case this might be a better choice.
This went in the wrong direction, IMO.
Best would be to just set up WireGuard or Tinc VPN between your home and your VPS, and send mail via the VPN's internal IPs. Then you could close off all relaying access to the outside world, and no attacks will be possible.
I use a public smtp server on a vps running postfix and spamassassin with smtpauth enabled. No need for a relay this way.
Yeah I have been using Sendgrid's free account for awhile now and I love it (I signed up when they were offering 12k mails a month for free). I use DMA to send off emails on my servers, it's small and works great just for sending out only.
Exactly, easy to configure and high deliverability also. Now I'm using MXroute because, well, you know we're LET!