Is it useful to have your own mail server as a non-business? Just a private person. Configure SMTP and IMAP for it, sync with outlook I think.

Yay or nay, waste of time? What are your thoughts?

  • gesis@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    My first IT job was as mail admin.

    I wouldn’t wish that shit on anybody.

    • Bubbagump210@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I remember that job and also building the server myself from scratch. Qmail, Squirrelmail, Dovecot and all that. It lasted about a year until we bought something as it was hell. Now days with IP reputation and spam filters - even if the server ran, you’d never get anything delivered outbound.

      OP, the most I would do is an SMTP server that relays through Gmail for delivering alerts from monitoring systems. Anything else is pain.

      • nbfs-chili@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I finally built my own mail server because if something broke my alerts would sometimes hit the maximum limit for a non-business gmail account and not get delivered.

        I learned a lot, but it is a pain in this day and age. I had to set up SPF and DMARC records to get it to deliver to gmail. I guess the next adventure is DKIM.

        • gihutgishuiruv@alien.topBEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Assuming you’re using postfix as an MTA, it’s not too hard to get OpenDKIM up and running.

          My mail admin experience is pretty dated these days, but I followed this guide back in the day and had it working.

          • nbfs-chili@alien.topBEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Unfortunately I’m using Citadel, which doesn’t have a lot of awesome documentation.

            Guess I get to learn some more.

      • dudeman2009@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        That’s all we do for clients that need on-prem equipment to scan that don’t support integration with Gmail/outlook online. Spin up an SMTP relay for things like scanners, alerts, Databases, etc. and just run that straight into Google/Microsoft Mail servers.

        Our latest migration was with MailEnable and going to Exchange online, which was a collosal mess.

      • PSYCHOPATHiO@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        i use proxmox mail gateway, i host both the gateway and mail server as vms on the same machine