4 ms·

Another user-hostile. Folks laugh when I say I run my own email (FreeBSD/Postfix) and "why build your own mail client"? Because, inevitably, all these for profi

by edoceo 5y ago

Another user-hostile. Folks laugh when I say I run my own email (FreeBSD/Postfix) and "why build your own mail client"? Because, inevitably, all these for profit service providers turn against me.

rantwasp 5y ago
i would not laugh. think it’s impressive and must eat a lot of time
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Setting up dovecot, postfix to receive emails is a fun few hours that have continued to work forever. Sending mail to gmail requires setting up extra processes that most times won't work anyways. Sending mail from an unknown ip is like sending it from a blacklisted address. To avoid this I use my isp to send the mail. Setup time including thunderbird settings is under an 2 hours for many.
- edoceo 5y ago
  Not really. Once Postfix, Dovecot, DNS stuff, DKIM, it "just works". I did lose some time, three years ago fiddling with spamassaaain vs rspamd but mail, after the not-really-that-hard-at-all setup. I mean, folk handle way more complex stuff (k8s) but balk at a bit of time on this old, boring, stable set-it-and-forget-it self-hosted wonder.
- jjav 5y ago
  > i would not laugh. think it’s impressive and must eat a lot of time It does not. I set up my latest/current email hosting in about 2011. Very minimal work on it since then. There's really nothing to do once it's working. Only work I can think of I've spent on it since 2011 is: regular OS updates (which take basically no time), added SPF and later DKIM support, added Let's Encrypt cert. That's it in ten years.
inamiyar 5y ago
The problem with running my own email is I don't want the hassle of convincing Google I'm not spam.
- rantwasp 5y ago
  gonna replace and evil with another one, but you can use amazon workmail (they have the spf, dkim, dmarc stuff figured out) with your own domain. it takes 10 minutes to setup. it does not have a flashy web ui - but if you do imap it doesn’t matter. cost: 12$/year for the domain, 4$/month for the user, 0.5$/month for the route53 zone so 5.5$/month to kick gmail to the curb. the gov is still gonna get your emails if they want them.
  - intricatedetail 5y ago
    But does it mean Amazon reads your email?
    - rantwasp 5y ago
      you need to figure that out yourself. Does Amazon look at your files in S3? Do they inspect your API traffic? Look at the files on your EC2 instances? Did I mention that Amazon has datacenters in places with stronger privacy laws (Germany cough cough)?
      - intricatedetail 5y ago
        I don't think companies that are too big to fail are particularly conscious of laws, especially in some European country...

by edoceo 5y ago

Another user-hostile. Folks laugh when I say I run my own email (FreeBSD/Postfix) and "why build your own mail client"? Because, inevitably, all these for profit service providers turn against me.

rantwasp 5y ago

i would not laugh. think it’s impressive and must eat a lot of time

ipaddr 5y ago
Setting up dovecot, postfix to receive emails is a fun few hours that have continued to work forever. Sending mail to gmail requires setting up extra processes that most times won't work anyways. Sending mail from an unknown ip is like sending it from a blacklisted address. To avoid this I use my isp to send the mail. Setup time including thunderbird settings is under an 2 hours for many.
edoceo 5y ago
Not really. Once Postfix, Dovecot, DNS stuff, DKIM, it "just works". I did lose some time, three years ago fiddling with spamassaaain vs rspamd but mail, after the not-really-that-hard-at-all setup. I mean, folk handle way more complex stuff (k8s) but balk at a bit of time on this old, boring, stable set-it-and-forget-it self-hosted wonder.
jjav 5y ago
> i would not laugh. think it’s impressive and must eat a lot of time It does not. I set up my latest/current email hosting in about 2011. Very minimal work on it since then. There's really nothing to do once it's working. Only work I can think of I've spent on it since 2011 is: regular OS updates (which take basically no time), added SPF and later DKIM support, added Let's Encrypt cert. That's it in ten years.

inamiyar 5y ago

The problem with running my own email is I don't want the hassle of convincing Google I'm not spam.

rantwasp 5y ago
gonna replace and evil with another one, but you can use amazon workmail (they have the spf, dkim, dmarc stuff figured out) with your own domain. it takes 10 minutes to setup. it does not have a flashy web ui - but if you do imap it doesn’t matter. cost: 12$/year for the domain, 4$/month for the user, 0.5$/month for the route53 zone so 5.5$/month to kick gmail to the curb. the gov is still gonna get your emails if they want them.
- intricatedetail 5y ago
  But does it mean Amazon reads your email?
  - rantwasp 5y ago
    you need to figure that out yourself. Does Amazon look at your files in S3? Do they inspect your API traffic? Look at the files on your EC2 instances? Did I mention that Amazon has datacenters in places with stronger privacy laws (Germany cough cough)?
    - intricatedetail 5y ago
      I don't think companies that are too big to fail are particularly conscious of laws, especially in some European country...