4 ms·

Heh. I think your steps 4-8 are all just “step 3 learning pains”. Configuring DNS for a “real email system” is often not trivial to figure out how to do. The st

by egwynn 9y ago

Heh. I think your steps 4-8 are all just “step 3 learning pains”. Configuring DNS for a “real email system” is often not trivial to figure out how to do. The steps are usually pretty “easy” (though getting a PTR record sometimes isn’t), but are frequently overlooked by beginners.

peterwwillis 9y ago
Yeah. Not to mention a lot of SMTP pain is when a major provider decides to blackhole you, or you are spam blacklisted, neither of which is under your control. Even a large corporation that self-hosts mail may have to constantly call other companies to get on their good side so they can send mail again. (The bigger you are, the more often this happens, but it also happens to small timers)
Tharkun 9y ago
I wish that were the case. I've been administering mail servers going back over 20 years and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The last 4 years or so, things have gotten a lot worse. Google and Microsoft are actively and deliberately making it harder for people to run their own mail servers. Sure, setting up DKIM and SPF and whatnot isn't hard. But blackholing legitimate mail without any reason, without any form of notification or any possible appeal, well that's just appalling. And sure, Google & MS have tools to debug a subset of mail issues, but those don't even work unless your MTA is sending boatloads of mail to their servers.
- Lunatic666 9y ago
  This is exactly the problem you run into when sending mails to Gmail: For them there are only bulk senders and gmail address owners. In their whole documentation / faq they don’t even mention small businesses or regular people owning a mailserver to just get contact other human beings. People at Google might be the smartest under the sun, but they don’t understand email: It’s primarily a way for people to communicate with each other. In Google’s eyes it’s only a way to deliver advertising to end users. Edited for typo
  - Tharkun 9y ago
    > People at Google might be the smartest under the sun, but they don’t understand email Oh no, they understand email very well. They're just arseholes who want to force "regular joe" and small business to use their services. This isn't some kind of accidental incompetence. There's no "whoops, sorry your mail isn't getting delivered, our bad!"-type situation going on. This is a deliberate strategy of making it as hard as possible for people to run their own mail servers. Of course they hide behind the excuse that you might be a spammer. But given Google's massive resources, there's no way in hell they can't tell ham from spam.

by egwynn 9y ago

peterwwillis 9y ago

Yeah. Not to mention a lot of SMTP pain is when a major provider decides to blackhole you, or you are spam blacklisted, neither of which is under your control. Even a large corporation that self-hosts mail may have to constantly call other companies to get on their good side so they can send mail again. (The bigger you are, the more often this happens, but it also happens to small timers)

Tharkun 9y ago

I wish that were the case. I've been administering mail servers going back over 20 years and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The last 4 years or so, things have gotten a lot worse. Google and Microsoft are actively and deliberately making it harder for people to run their own mail servers. Sure, setting up DKIM and SPF and whatnot isn't hard. But blackholing legitimate mail without any reason, without any form of notification or any possible appeal, well that's just appalling. And sure, Google & MS have tools to debug a subset of mail issues, but those don't even work unless your MTA is sending boatloads of mail to their servers.

Lunatic666 9y ago
This is exactly the problem you run into when sending mails to Gmail: For them there are only bulk senders and gmail address owners. In their whole documentation / faq they don’t even mention small businesses or regular people owning a mailserver to just get contact other human beings. People at Google might be the smartest under the sun, but they don’t understand email: It’s primarily a way for people to communicate with each other. In Google’s eyes it’s only a way to deliver advertising to end users. Edited for typo
- Tharkun 9y ago
  > People at Google might be the smartest under the sun, but they don’t understand email Oh no, they understand email very well. They're just arseholes who want to force "regular joe" and small business to use their services. This isn't some kind of accidental incompetence. There's no "whoops, sorry your mail isn't getting delivered, our bad!"-type situation going on. This is a deliberate strategy of making it as hard as possible for people to run their own mail servers. Of course they hide behind the excuse that you might be a spammer. But given Google's massive resources, there's no way in hell they can't tell ham from spam.