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I run my own mail server, mostly for fun and to learn how it all works, but so far, after a few teething problems, it works pretty well. I don't have any critic
by sleavey 9y ago
I run my own mail server, mostly for fun and to learn how it all works, but so far, after a few teething problems, it works pretty well. I don't have any critical services registered with addresses from this server; I use it for random websites (like Hacker News newsletters), cron job outputs on my server, Stack Exchange, etc., and as a way to back up my Gmail account remotely. The great thing is that I can dish out unique email address to each service, and have them all end up at the same place, so I know who sold my data when I get spam.
If the server falls over during the night, then meh... I'll probably fix it reasonably quickly if I'm not on a beach somewhere, and the sending server is supposed to try again anyway.
- mrb 9y ago«The great thing is that I can dish out unique email address» That's the number one reason I would like to run my own server. (And, no, the Gmail trick of adding "+foo" to the username doesn't satisfy me because spammers know this trick and can strip it.)
- mobweb 9y agoCouldn't you just setup a domain with an email hosting provider and then turn on catch-all for that domain? For me I can just use any email @my-domain and it will be forwarded to my actual email address.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sleavey 9y agoYes, you can do that. But if you run your own server you can configure more complex filters to handle situations where mail is flagged - discard loudly (telling sender), discard silently, move to special folder if unsure of spamminess, let through.
- rhizome 9y agoThen you start getting an amazing number of emails to alice@yourdomain.com, bob@yourdomain.com, chris@yourdomain.com, dan@yourdomain.com, ceo@yourdomain.com, sales@yourdomain.com, etc.
- mobweb 9y agoNot if you let your email hoster spam filtering though? I've been doing that for ages and never had an issue with spam.
- wila 9y agoMost decent ISPs let you create email forwarders. This is exactly what I use when signing up for a new service. Quickly add a new forwarder and feed the service that email address instead of my normal address. When they turn out to be spammy, the forwarder gets removed.
- mrb 9y agoDo you mean ESP or ISP? Relying on an ISP email forwarder doesn't work because if I move and cancel my service, I lose all these forwarders. What ESP do you recommend for unlimited (or large numbers of) aliases indistinguishable from individual email addresses (such as ycombinator4853@foo.com facebook843983@foo.com but not john+ycombinator@gmail.com john+facebook@gmail.com)? Edit: fastmail's standard $50/yr plan offers 600 aliases. This might be good enough. I've created online accounts at 371 different services over the last 20 years.
- pi-rat 9y agoCombine aliases with fastmail’s subdomain addressing, and I seriously doubt you’ll run out of names any time soon :)