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I've spent years tweaking my mail server setup (Postfix, Dovecot, RSPAMD, LDAP...) and did a full writeup a few months ago. I've used other guides online but fo

I've spent years tweaking my mail server setup (Postfix, Dovecot, RSPAMD, LDAP...) and did a full writeup a few months ago. I've used other guides online but found most of the rest lacking on details. https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/mail-server-guide https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/mail-server-guide

j_s 9y ago
I've submitted this for discussion and asked the mods to give you the credit you deserve for putting in so much effort! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16238937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16238937
zwischenzug 9y ago
That looks great, thanks.
herbst 9y ago
Curious why you settled for Postfix? I know its basically the standard but its a pain to configure and modify. I recently started to work with Haraka and its so much more of a plessure (even thought i am no JS fan, i prefer JS to cryptic/ancient config files) Just curious if you went through a evaluation process
- thallian 9y ago
  Did not know Haraka, looks interesting. Do you use it together with an imap server (like dovecot)?
  - herbst 9y ago
    Not yet no. But curious about such a setup as well.
- perlgod 9y ago
  I don't feel like I "settled" for Postfix. The configuration is quite simple, the documentation is great, and it's been battle-tested for decades. I have basically no experience with Javascript or web stuff, and the last thing I want to do is figure out some leftpad-style NPM package dependency while my mail server is down. Maybe I'm just an old-school Unix guy at heart though - running a JavaScript interpreter on a privileged port just doesn't sit right with me.
- icedchai 9y ago
  If you want "pain to configure and modify", take a look at sendmail, which was the standard for decades. Postfix is a breeze to work with in comparison.
  - __david__ 9y ago
    I don't agree. Sendmail definitely has the weirder config file syntax, but (having set both up multiple times) both have the exact same setup technique—reading through the manual looking at the config options and copying/pasting the lines into the config.
    - icedchai 9y ago
      That same technique can be applied to basically anything. I've setup both multiple times, and have worked with Sendmail since 1994. Postfix config files are much simpler. To configure sendmail, you have to do extra layers of weirdness, like deal with "m4". That's mental overhead you just don't have with Postfix.
      - __david__ 9y ago
        There's not really any extra layers of weirdness unless you're digging down into the nasty .cf files (which you probably never ever need to do). The m4 is just a detail (so you end up commenting with "dnl"). The relative complexity of the files is about the same—my postfix server config is roughly the same number of lines as my sendmail server config. And each line is just a single conf thing. Sendmail isn't really more complicated at all. It's just ugly.
thallian 9y ago
Thanks a lot for that! I've been running a similar stack (ldap took me a while to grasp) but without rspamd which I wanted to add. Your writeup is the perfect excuse to finally start with it.
tombrossman 9y ago
Thanks from me too, this looks great. I also knew immediately why the SVG looks wrong on Firefox because I had the same problem before - The text is 'live' text and not stroked to paths. It's a pain to do if you have a lot of text content, but if you can click on text in an SVG and discover it is still editable, it won't render correctly for many viewers. Once you are sure there are no typos, stroke all text to paths and it will look perfect on any browser.
jacobush 9y ago
Thanks. I was just complaining last week to my friends that all howtos about postfix and spam protection seem to be a decade old. Now you fixed it and I wlil add rspamd (which I did not know about). My previous plan was to add some kind of Right Hand Spam Filter, do you have any opinion on that?
- perlgod 9y ago
  Hope you find it helpful! Not sure what you mean by Right Hand Spam Filter, but Rspamd has been great. It integrates with postfix as a milter so there's very little configuration to get it working with your existing setup. The daunting part is just how many options/features the project has - which is what I tried to clear up in my guide.
0xfeba 9y ago
Are there any good open-source webmail clients?

j_s 9y ago

I've submitted this for discussion and asked the mods to give you the credit you deserve for putting in so much effort! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16238937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16238937

zwischenzug 9y ago

That looks great, thanks.

herbst 9y ago

Curious why you settled for Postfix? I know its basically the standard but its a pain to configure and modify. I recently started to work with Haraka and its so much more of a plessure (even thought i am no JS fan, i prefer JS to cryptic/ancient config files) Just curious if you went through a evaluation process

thallian 9y ago
Did not know Haraka, looks interesting. Do you use it together with an imap server (like dovecot)?
- herbst 9y ago
  Not yet no. But curious about such a setup as well.
perlgod 9y ago
I don't feel like I "settled" for Postfix. The configuration is quite simple, the documentation is great, and it's been battle-tested for decades. I have basically no experience with Javascript or web stuff, and the last thing I want to do is figure out some leftpad-style NPM package dependency while my mail server is down. Maybe I'm just an old-school Unix guy at heart though - running a JavaScript interpreter on a privileged port just doesn't sit right with me.
icedchai 9y ago
If you want "pain to configure and modify", take a look at sendmail, which was the standard for decades. Postfix is a breeze to work with in comparison.
- __david__ 9y ago
  I don't agree. Sendmail definitely has the weirder config file syntax, but (having set both up multiple times) both have the exact same setup technique—reading through the manual looking at the config options and copying/pasting the lines into the config.
  - icedchai 9y ago
    That same technique can be applied to basically anything. I've setup both multiple times, and have worked with Sendmail since 1994. Postfix config files are much simpler. To configure sendmail, you have to do extra layers of weirdness, like deal with "m4". That's mental overhead you just don't have with Postfix.
    - __david__ 9y ago
      There's not really any extra layers of weirdness unless you're digging down into the nasty .cf files (which you probably never ever need to do). The m4 is just a detail (so you end up commenting with "dnl"). The relative complexity of the files is about the same—my postfix server config is roughly the same number of lines as my sendmail server config. And each line is just a single conf thing. Sendmail isn't really more complicated at all. It's just ugly.

thallian 9y ago

Thanks a lot for that! I've been running a similar stack (ldap took me a while to grasp) but without rspamd which I wanted to add. Your writeup is the perfect excuse to finally start with it.

tombrossman 9y ago

Thanks from me too, this looks great. I also knew immediately why the SVG looks wrong on Firefox because I had the same problem before - The text is 'live' text and not stroked to paths. It's a pain to do if you have a lot of text content, but if you can click on text in an SVG and discover it is still editable, it won't render correctly for many viewers. Once you are sure there are no typos, stroke all text to paths and it will look perfect on any browser.

jacobush 9y ago

Thanks. I was just complaining last week to my friends that all howtos about postfix and spam protection seem to be a decade old. Now you fixed it and I wlil add rspamd (which I did not know about). My previous plan was to add some kind of Right Hand Spam Filter, do you have any opinion on that?

perlgod 9y ago
Hope you find it helpful! Not sure what you mean by Right Hand Spam Filter, but Rspamd has been great. It integrates with postfix as a milter so there's very little configuration to get it working with your existing setup. The daunting part is just how many options/features the project has - which is what I tried to clear up in my guide.

0xfeba 9y ago

Are there any good open-source webmail clients?