4 ms·

> I have a few years of experience running my own email server and I can tell you this is a major pain in the ass. When you send your email via a small email se

> I have a few years of experience running my own email server and I can tell you this is a major pain in the ass. When you send your email via a small email server (a server that sends a low volume of email), you will have constant issues getting mail delivered. Also, most of the issues will not be with obscure email servers, they will be with Outlook and Gmail. When you send email, you will never know if your email will be delivered to inbox, delivered to spam folder, or blackholed entirely. I tend to disagree, due to my experiences with running a private mail server [1]. I've had one exactly one issue with Outlook/Hotmail servers over the years. My server is quite low traffic, but it's been delivering mail reliably. How do I know? When I send mails, there's usually follow-ups. [1] https://jschumacher.info/2021/05/running-a-private-mail-server-for-six-years-easy-peasy/ https://jschumacher.info/2021/05/running-a-private-mail-serv...

mpol 5y ago
This is my experience too with a private server, but I did need SPF, DKIM and Dmarc. These 3 things do require some expertise, but running a mail server already requires that. So it just needs extra time :)
- zbuf 5y ago
  More than just SPF, DKIM and DMARC; mails still get silently discarded if you come from an IP address with a poor reputation. For this reason most of the large VM hosting providers will work but not give great results.
- baobabKoodaa 5y ago
  Nope, setting up SPF, DKIM and DMARC is not enough to get your email delivered. I wrote about my experience more here: https://www.attejuvonen.fi/dont-send-email-from-your-own-server/ https://www.attejuvonen.fi/dont-send-email-from-your-own-ser...
  - zbuf 5y ago
    The irony is that most of the spam I get these days comes from Amazon's AWS SMTP service.
baobabKoodaa 5y ago
> My server is quite low traffic, but it's been delivering mail reliably. How do I know? When I send mails, there's usually follow-ups. And when there's no follow-ups, you just assume your mail has been delivered? I recommend actually measuring your deliverability before making claims about it.
- lazyweb 5y ago
  Well either there's a bounce, or some other indicator in the postfix logs (collected by filebeat, with alertings in kibana). If I'd still be getting blackholed with a "250 delivered" in my logs, then screw it. I would even argue people hosting their small selfmanaged mail servers helps preventing monopolization, eg. "only allow mail from google".
  - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
    > Well either there's a bounce, or some other indicator in the postfix logs (collected by filebeat, with alertings in kibana). The most common type of problem is that mail is delivered but placed into the spam folder. You will not be notified of this with a bounce or anything in your postfix logs. > If I'd still be getting blackholed with a "250 delivered" in my logs, then screw it. This is another type of problem I've encountered. It's rarer than the spam folder, but it happens.

mpol 5y ago

This is my experience too with a private server, but I did need SPF, DKIM and Dmarc. These 3 things do require some expertise, but running a mail server already requires that. So it just needs extra time :)

zbuf 5y ago
More than just SPF, DKIM and DMARC; mails still get silently discarded if you come from an IP address with a poor reputation. For this reason most of the large VM hosting providers will work but not give great results.
baobabKoodaa 5y ago
Nope, setting up SPF, DKIM and DMARC is not enough to get your email delivered. I wrote about my experience more here: https://www.attejuvonen.fi/dont-send-email-from-your-own-server/ https://www.attejuvonen.fi/dont-send-email-from-your-own-ser...
- zbuf 5y ago
  The irony is that most of the spam I get these days comes from Amazon's AWS SMTP service.

baobabKoodaa 5y ago

> My server is quite low traffic, but it's been delivering mail reliably. How do I know? When I send mails, there's usually follow-ups. And when there's no follow-ups, you just assume your mail has been delivered? I recommend actually measuring your deliverability before making claims about it.

lazyweb 5y ago
Well either there's a bounce, or some other indicator in the postfix logs (collected by filebeat, with alertings in kibana). If I'd still be getting blackholed with a "250 delivered" in my logs, then screw it. I would even argue people hosting their small selfmanaged mail servers helps preventing monopolization, eg. "only allow mail from google".
- baobabKoodaa 5y ago
  > Well either there's a bounce, or some other indicator in the postfix logs (collected by filebeat, with alertings in kibana). The most common type of problem is that mail is delivered but placed into the spam folder. You will not be notified of this with a bounce or anything in your postfix logs. > If I'd still be getting blackholed with a "250 delivered" in my logs, then screw it. This is another type of problem I've encountered. It's rarer than the spam folder, but it happens.