5 ms·

These home server boxes never include self-hosting email. Is it because anyone running their own SMTP is assumed to be a spammer? It's annoying because hosted

by galonk 7y ago

These home server boxes never include self-hosting email. Is it because anyone running their own SMTP is assumed to be a spammer? It's annoying because hosted email services are strangely expensive. Oh, they'll let you have multiple email addresses for a low rate, but as soon as you want multiple mailboxes (which is just a separate directory as far as the server is concerned), suddenly I'm paying way way more.

DenseComet 7y ago
Its usually because residential IPs block port 25 so a mail server would not even be able to receive mail
- scarhill 7y ago
  I know that residential ISPs block outgoing port 25 because of the spam issue. Is it common for them to block it incoming as well? You don't really need outgoing port 25 to run your own mail server.
  - progval 7y ago
    > You don't really need outgoing port 25 to run your own mail server. You do need it to send mail
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      Directly, yes, but not via a smart host, which is how most SOHO mailservers (where used) are configured. It's not quite a full-fledged, full-privilege system, but it continues to provide major benefits over Webmail or client-based (POPS, IMAPS) configurations.
  - allset_ 7y ago
    You definitely need outbound port 25/587 if you want to send email to others.
    - scarhill 7y ago
      You need an outgoing mail server, but ISPs provide those, and typically don't block port 587.
  - m463 7y ago
    Yes. Some allow it after a shibboleet phone call.
jasode 7y ago
>These home server boxes never include self-hosting email. Is it because anyone running their own SMTP is assumed to be a spammer? Yes, that's part of the issue. Because many home computers got infected by viruses to become bots sending bulk spam, email sourced from residential ip addresses became "guilty until proven innocent". Even the recent $499 "home email appliance" such as Helm[1][2][3] for private encrypted email ends up using a centralized service such as Amazon AWS for the routing of email packets. >Oh, they'll let you have multiple email addresses for a low rate, but as soon as you want multiple mailboxes (which is just a separate directory as far as the server is concerned), suddenly I'm paying way way more. If you don't need business-class type of email service ("business" meaning Outlook sync, shared calendars, 99.999% uptime, etc), then the cheapest way I found for multiple mailboxes is a shared hosting plan. E.g. I pay $49/year for 5 website domains that includes email hosting with unlimited mailboxes. Not just unlimited addresses/aliases but mailboxes. Shared hosting is way cheaper than the $144/year that Rackspace charges for just 5 mailboxes. [1] https://thehelm.com/ https://thehelm.com/ [2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/review-helm-personal-server-gets-email-self-hosting-almost-exactly-right/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/review-helm-personal... [3] TWIS also had a 1 hour discussion with Helm's CEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BhOreZKXPA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BhOreZKXPA
- Jesus_Jones 7y ago
  helm was $300 for a time - $100 a year service fee after. I see they are now showing out of stock. And they started to add other services, including hosting some services on it with nextcloud.
- extra88 7y ago
  > Not just unlimited addresses/aliases but mailboxes Yes, Dreamhost shared hosting includes this.
- jlelse 7y ago
  I recently switch to mailcow-dockerized on a cheap 3€/month VPS and it works perfectly. I can create as many mailboxes as I want (until the disk is full) and also have as many domains / email adresses connected. It's really awesome and way easier than I imagined. Mailcow: https://github.com/mailcow/mailcow-dockerized/ https://github.com/mailcow/mailcow-dockerized/ My blog post: https://jlelse.blog/thoughts/2019/mail-server/ https://jlelse.blog/thoughts/2019/mail-server/
cjm42 7y ago
I use Pobox Basic ($20/year) + AllMail ($10/domain to forward all addresses at that domain) [1]. Mail for anybody@example.com goes to Pobox, which forwards to me@home.example.com (my home server). My server is configured to send all outgoing mail through Pobox's servers, which avoids the problem of people blocking residential SMTP. [1] https://www.pobox.com/pricing https://www.pobox.com/pricing
- ggm 7y ago
  I am another longtime @pobox person. However, I recently got told that its held up as a source of spammy mail, is characterised by many other SMTP speakers as a problem. pobox is now owned by fastmail. They are an Australian company and for other reasons (crypto nation state issues) are not always suitable, but technology wise are very smart. I'm sticking with my @pobox identity, its possible fastmail offer better domain-centric mail forwarding options for you noting the AU crypto law issue. (in case its not clear, pobox and fastmail are in the same "space" but appear to operate independently)
holri 7y ago
Freedombox has a mail server planned.
- Flip-per 7y ago
  Does it? Do you have more information about that? I occasionally contribute to the project, and afaik the general opinion is that mail servers would be too tedious and error prone exactly because of this problem. Did I miss something?
  - holri 7y ago
    https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/QuestionsAndAnswers#Does_FreedomBox_do_secure_email_server.3F https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/QuestionsAndAnswers#Does_...
    - Flip-per 7y ago
      Apparently I really missed it, see also https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Roadmap2019 https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Roadmap2019 It will be interesting to see how well it works.
captn3m0 7y ago
Migadu has unlimited domains and unlimited mailboxes. They just ask for sensible outbound email (anything less than a few thousand per day)
- galonk 7y ago
  Thanks! It could be what I've been looking for!
wnevets 7y ago
thehelm.com advertises on twit.tv and they claim in the advert to work around those issues
penagwin 7y ago
At least in my experience, residential networks aren't worth bothering with for email. It's all about reliability - I need my email to work at all points in time. I can't deal with ISPs blocking the port, not to mention everything will flag your emails as spam because it's coming from a residential IP. If you're selling a commercial offering then you're going to need to fix those issues, otherwise, why wouldn't you pay for a "standard" solution that solves those issues for you?
- jstanley 7y ago
  > not to mention everything will flag your emails as spam because it's coming from a residential IP. In my view, this is the recipient's problem, not the sender's.
  - losteric 7y ago
    Yes, it is - the recipient solves the problem by flagging your emails as spam.
mindslight 7y ago
Hosting incoming SMTP requires doing network config at the provider level - stable static IP, port 25 unblocking, and static DNS. Needing to host outgoing SMTP is an anachronism. It's only needed since client IPs are often considered dirty, so hosting it on your home connection can't fix that! FWIW if you just don't want the responsibility of securing an Internet-facing server yourself but don't mind some config otherwise, you could sort email yourself with fetchmail+procmail or the like.
microcolonel 7y ago
Generally residential connections block outbound port 25, because of the spam issues that were caused by compromised computers in decades passed. Also, I ran an email server at home when I was a teenager, the availability of the server was less than I wanted, so I've had to move that email service elsewhere. I suspect relatively average people would have a very hard time operating a satisfactory email service at home even if all of the SMTP stuff is perfectly reliable and foolproof.
Alekss 7y ago
In case your are interested, the YunoHost project includes a fully-functional mail stack out of the box (modulo the DNS records which you must set in your registrar according to the recommended DNS conf provided by YunoHost ;))
JudgeWapner 7y ago
side note: we could solve the problem of spam overnight by including blockchain micropayments with email. Email is not delivered without a $0.10 - $1.00 micropayment. By default, the payment is refunded within 2 days after it's read (perhaps send it encrypted, reading it requires submitting a time-delayed micropayment). If you report the email as spam, however, the refund is cancelled and you keep the micropayment. New emails may not be allowed to participate, or may be forced to reduce their payments to exceedingly small (sub-cent) amounts to prevent fraud. but once an established reputation was built, most senders should be comfortable sending you $0.25 or higher payments. Semi-famous/"popular" people could ratchet up their fee to several dollars or higher. A movie star or other celeb could ratchet their fee to $25 or higher and have a no-refunds policy and donate the money to charity. People who commonly exchange email could whitelist each other. Wouldn't this be a good use of blockchain technology ?

by galonk 7y ago

DenseComet 7y ago

Its usually because residential IPs block port 25 so a mail server would not even be able to receive mail

scarhill 7y ago
I know that residential ISPs block outgoing port 25 because of the spam issue. Is it common for them to block it incoming as well? You don't really need outgoing port 25 to run your own mail server.
- progval 7y ago
  > You don't really need outgoing port 25 to run your own mail server. You do need it to send mail
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Directly, yes, but not via a smart host, which is how most SOHO mailservers (where used) are configured. It's not quite a full-fledged, full-privilege system, but it continues to provide major benefits over Webmail or client-based (POPS, IMAPS) configurations.
- allset_ 7y ago
  You definitely need outbound port 25/587 if you want to send email to others.
  - scarhill 7y ago
    You need an outgoing mail server, but ISPs provide those, and typically don't block port 587.
- m463 7y ago
  Yes. Some allow it after a shibboleet phone call.

jasode 7y ago

>These home server boxes never include self-hosting email. Is it because anyone running their own SMTP is assumed to be a spammer? Yes, that's part of the issue. Because many home computers got infected by viruses to become bots sending bulk spam, email sourced from residential ip addresses became "guilty until proven innocent". Even the recent $499 "home email appliance" such as Helm[1][2][3] for private encrypted email ends up using a centralized service such as Amazon AWS for the routing of email packets. >Oh, they'll let you have multiple email addresses for a low rate, but as soon as you want multiple mailboxes (which is just a separate directory as far as the server is concerned), suddenly I'm paying way way more. If you don't need business-class type of email service ("business" meaning Outlook sync, shared calendars, 99.999% uptime, etc), then the cheapest way I found for multiple mailboxes is a shared hosting plan. E.g. I pay $49/year for 5 website domains that includes email hosting with unlimited mailboxes. Not just unlimited addresses/aliases but mailboxes. Shared hosting is way cheaper than the $144/year that Rackspace charges for just 5 mailboxes. [1] https://thehelm.com/ https://thehelm.com/ [2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/review-helm-personal-server-gets-email-self-hosting-almost-exactly-right/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/review-helm-personal... [3] TWIS also had a 1 hour discussion with Helm's CEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BhOreZKXPA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BhOreZKXPA

Jesus_Jones 7y ago
helm was $300 for a time - $100 a year service fee after. I see they are now showing out of stock. And they started to add other services, including hosting some services on it with nextcloud.
extra88 7y ago
> Not just unlimited addresses/aliases but mailboxes Yes, Dreamhost shared hosting includes this.
jlelse 7y ago
I recently switch to mailcow-dockerized on a cheap 3€/month VPS and it works perfectly. I can create as many mailboxes as I want (until the disk is full) and also have as many domains / email adresses connected. It's really awesome and way easier than I imagined. Mailcow: https://github.com/mailcow/mailcow-dockerized/ https://github.com/mailcow/mailcow-dockerized/ My blog post: https://jlelse.blog/thoughts/2019/mail-server/ https://jlelse.blog/thoughts/2019/mail-server/

cjm42 7y ago

I use Pobox Basic ($20/year) + AllMail ($10/domain to forward all addresses at that domain) [1]. Mail for anybody@example.com goes to Pobox, which forwards to me@home.example.com (my home server). My server is configured to send all outgoing mail through Pobox's servers, which avoids the problem of people blocking residential SMTP. [1] https://www.pobox.com/pricing https://www.pobox.com/pricing

ggm 7y ago
I am another longtime @pobox person. However, I recently got told that its held up as a source of spammy mail, is characterised by many other SMTP speakers as a problem. pobox is now owned by fastmail. They are an Australian company and for other reasons (crypto nation state issues) are not always suitable, but technology wise are very smart. I'm sticking with my @pobox identity, its possible fastmail offer better domain-centric mail forwarding options for you noting the AU crypto law issue. (in case its not clear, pobox and fastmail are in the same "space" but appear to operate independently)

holri 7y ago

Freedombox has a mail server planned.

Flip-per 7y ago
Does it? Do you have more information about that? I occasionally contribute to the project, and afaik the general opinion is that mail servers would be too tedious and error prone exactly because of this problem. Did I miss something?
- holri 7y ago
  https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/QuestionsAndAnswers#Does_FreedomBox_do_secure_email_server.3F https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/QuestionsAndAnswers#Does_...
  - Flip-per 7y ago
    Apparently I really missed it, see also https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Roadmap2019 https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Roadmap2019 It will be interesting to see how well it works.

captn3m0 7y ago

Migadu has unlimited domains and unlimited mailboxes. They just ask for sensible outbound email (anything less than a few thousand per day)

galonk 7y ago
Thanks! It could be what I've been looking for!

wnevets 7y ago

thehelm.com advertises on twit.tv and they claim in the advert to work around those issues

penagwin 7y ago

At least in my experience, residential networks aren't worth bothering with for email. It's all about reliability - I need my email to work at all points in time. I can't deal with ISPs blocking the port, not to mention everything will flag your emails as spam because it's coming from a residential IP. If you're selling a commercial offering then you're going to need to fix those issues, otherwise, why wouldn't you pay for a "standard" solution that solves those issues for you?

jstanley 7y ago
> not to mention everything will flag your emails as spam because it's coming from a residential IP. In my view, this is the recipient's problem, not the sender's.
- losteric 7y ago
  Yes, it is - the recipient solves the problem by flagging your emails as spam.

mindslight 7y ago

Hosting incoming SMTP requires doing network config at the provider level - stable static IP, port 25 unblocking, and static DNS. Needing to host outgoing SMTP is an anachronism. It's only needed since client IPs are often considered dirty, so hosting it on your home connection can't fix that! FWIW if you just don't want the responsibility of securing an Internet-facing server yourself but don't mind some config otherwise, you could sort email yourself with fetchmail+procmail or the like.

microcolonel 7y ago

Generally residential connections block outbound port 25, because of the spam issues that were caused by compromised computers in decades passed. Also, I ran an email server at home when I was a teenager, the availability of the server was less than I wanted, so I've had to move that email service elsewhere. I suspect relatively average people would have a very hard time operating a satisfactory email service at home even if all of the SMTP stuff is perfectly reliable and foolproof.

Alekss 7y ago

In case your are interested, the YunoHost project includes a fully-functional mail stack out of the box (modulo the DNS records which you must set in your registrar according to the recommended DNS conf provided by YunoHost ;))

JudgeWapner 7y ago

side note: we could solve the problem of spam overnight by including blockchain micropayments with email. Email is not delivered without a $0.10 - $1.00 micropayment. By default, the payment is refunded within 2 days after it's read (perhaps send it encrypted, reading it requires submitting a time-delayed micropayment). If you report the email as spam, however, the refund is cancelled and you keep the micropayment. New emails may not be allowed to participate, or may be forced to reduce their payments to exceedingly small (sub-cent) amounts to prevent fraud. but once an established reputation was built, most senders should be comfortable sending you $0.25 or higher payments. Semi-famous/"popular" people could ratchet up their fee to several dollars or higher. A movie star or other celeb could ratchet their fee to $25 or higher and have a no-refunds policy and donate the money to charity. People who commonly exchange email could whitelist each other. Wouldn't this be a good use of blockchain technology ?