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Re: "We really should host our own email servers on VPSes"
I am also using Mailcow for my mail server, and I have no problem sending mails to Gmail and Office-hosted domains, although I took the time to set up everything correctly with SPF, DKIM, DMARK and around 20 DNS records.
I now have virtually unlimited email addresses, and with rspamd already setup for me, I just have to monitor it. I do have a slight problem of false positives, but that may be because I recieved a singluar piece of real spam sind I set it up (don't remember when, but less than a year ago), or that my definition of spam is really specific and does not cover many mails.
Sep 13 · 3 months ago
👾 fab [OP] · Sep 14 at 09:14:
@AlbertLarsan68 I don't have a high mail throughput, so it's difficult for me to build up trust with Outlook or Gmail. Sometimes my mail gets through, sometimes not.
That doesn't change my strong opinion with them: Don't use Outlook, Gmail or any other proprietary email provider.
🦀 AlbertLarsan68 · Sep 14 at 19:40:
@fab
TBH I tested sending a mail day one of setting up, and despite sending it with a GPG signature and no HTML, it went straight to the inbox.
And I am the only one using my mail server, and the outbound volume is close to an email a month overall, not counting the DMARC automated emails.
Although I have an unhealthy amount of MS-hosted and Gmail accounts, I am slowly moving torwards another host, part of the CHATONS (a group of French service providers), unbon.cafe.
👾 fab [OP] · Sep 15 at 04:40:
@AlbertLarsan68 I checked with an old gmail address years ago, and the mail went strait to the inbox too. I wanted to test today, but google wants my phonenumber and I'm not willing to give it to them.
Without some phone number I can't use my account anymore. Gmail becomes more and more audacious from day to day.
😺 kotovalexarian · Sep 19 at 19:18:
I run my own mail server for maybe two years. No ready-made solutions, just Postfix, Dovecot and OpenDKIM on DigitalOcean. I've configured RDNS, SPF, DKIM, DMARC.
No problems with delivery to Gmail, but yes, Outlook bounces because of my IP range which is a stupid move from them and I'm not going to do anything with it. Who ever uses Outlook? The only spam database I'm in is UCEPROTECT level 3, but it's just a scam (why is it ever listed anywhere?)
I don't implement any anti-spam measures. Since the beginning I've had maybe 300 spam and scam messages that I've manually deleted, which is not that annoying (but I'm going to install Rspamd)
The main problem I see is the lack of guides with deep explanation of configuration. This is because not too many people deploy their own email servers. So let's increase demand! Don't be afraid of self-hosting email!
👾 fab [OP] · Sep 19 at 20:20:
@kotovalexarian Yes, UCEPROTECT are mainly scammers who want to extort mail server admins. Those who use their lists don't *want* to receive email.
I use MailCow as my email solution, because it's easy to install, upgrade and maintain. A self setup of postfix, dovecot and all the necessaries scares me a little because it's easy to make mistakes in the configs which may compromise security (at least in my case).
But of course the main thing is to bring more people to selfhost their email servers, so: Good work!
🚀 hedgehog · Sep 22 at 19:11:
Also read Solene's thoughts about this => gemini://perso.pw/blog/articles/email-selfhost-to-protonmail.gmi
👾 fab [OP] · Sep 22 at 22:49:
@hedgehog yes, sad to see anotherone leave the email self-hosting space. At least they doesn't use google or outlook. All in all a VPS is only someone elses computer. I know that. But I need a functioning IMAP and don't have a problem with strong passwords. For security reasons I use MailCow, because it's well maintained and has sensible defaults.
👾 jecxjo · Oct 15 at 01:10:
i have been self hosting my email for over a decade. Honestly the setup and maintenance isn't an issue. My biggest problem is the cost of a VPS. If i ever get fiber I'll host from home but until then i have to shell out money for someone else to run a computer for me.
I would probably drop my email hosting and go paper correspondence for most things if it wasn't such a pain to switch the few things i still use email for to a new address.
We really should host our own email servers on VPSes — I got an email reply from someone who discovered my email 10 days after sending in his spam folder. I'm not sure why - maybe he hosts his domain at Outlook.com or Gmail and it's difficult to build up reputation for these A-holes. Or it may be because my VPS provider is on the UCEPROTECT-L3 blocklist (again). But I really like plaintext email despite all of it's problems. So I think the smolnet/IndieWeb community members should run their own...
💬 fab · 37 comments · 4 likes · Aug 28 · 4 months ago