8 ms·

Someone should try "artisanal email server" using cloudron or yunohost ! the bigger problem is that "authoritative" email monopolies such as Gmail, 365 and the

• beebeepka 5y ago
  Indeed. Only that's not the bigger problem. It is the actual problem with email.
• jacquesm 5y ago
  This is exactly it. Email is now just another way to squeeze companies and private individuals alike instead of a cheap, secure and free way to communicate. Peer-to-peer email was worth having, in spite of the downsides.
  • donmcronald 5y ago
    I’ve seen a lot of small businesses go from $50 / year to $500+ / year. And from their point of view all they get is a bunch of nagging about 2FA and a much bigger target on their back when it comes to phishing.
• hannob 5y ago
  I'm running an email server and I can tell you that this is by and large not the case. If you put some decent effort into making sure that you don't send spam, try to monitor if anyone thinks you send spam and react when someone complains that you send spam (and stop it), it works. In my experience people telling these stories often do send spam, but they don't believe they do. ("It's not spam, it's a Newsletter. No, it has no unsubscribe link. These are people that agreed to be put on the newsletter by clicking on some ToS they never read, and they can unsubscribe by some arcane mechanism that we will make as complicated as we can. But we're definitely not spammers.")
  • roywashere 5y ago
    Indeed, after setting up dmarc and such delivery is no longer really an issue. I guess around 10 years ago, that was different! But what is a problem is providing a good enough web interface, search, and so on.
  • kro 5y ago
    To most, including Gmail, it's actually no problem with DMARC in my experience too. However, one of my servers IPs is on a Microsoft blacklist since many years now. It sends <10 messages / day. I've tried every unlist form I could find, even called MS but it does not get taken of that list and they "won't disclose why". I'm routing SMTP to MS via another relay now :)
    • tudorw 5y ago
      same experience here, perfect score but no mail into Microsoft
    • feanaro 5y ago
      > I'm routing SMTP to MS via another relay now :) How do you do this? Could you share details on the setup?
      • kortilla 5y ago
        https://serverfault.com/questions/257637/postfix-to-relay-mails-to-other-smtp-for-particular-domain https://serverfault.com/questions/257637/postfix-to-relay-ma...
      • kro 5y ago
        It's a rather simple Postfix setup: transport.db: hotmail.com relay:[relay.server.tld]:587 # and other domains main.cf: transport_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/transport smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/relay_passwd relay_passwd.db: # if necessary / not authenticated by IP relay.server.tld user:pass The relay can/should rewrite the Return-Path to pass SPF. It's no problem for DMARC as the DKIM signature added by the initial server still authenticates it. It requires manually adding domains of custom 365 installations to the list - at this size I do this manually, but should probably be automated "on bounce" or maybe even by a smart rule based on the MX record. In Exim4 it's also possible to conditionally rewrite based on for example the recipient domain.
• caymanjim 5y ago
  I hear this all the time, but I question how true it is. I've been running my own mail servers for decades, and I've never had any problems with sending or receiving mail. I suspect anyone who properly configures their server will be fine.
  • michaelt 5y ago
    The problem is delivery problems are almost undetectable. If I send an email to a corporation’s customer support, or to a distant relation, or to an open source mailing list, and I don’t get a reply, it could be a delivery problem - or it could just be that they didn’t decide to reply.
    • dqv 5y ago
      For corporate support, that’s totally on them. Checking the spam folder is customer support. The “oh sorry your email went to spam!” is one of the few times I express dissatisfaction to a company. It’s not my responsibility to make sure my email doesn’t go to their spam folder. Not when I’ve taken all the right steps to make sure my emails are not marked as spam. If you have customers, you have to check your spam folder! It’s not foolproof.
      • kiwijamo 5y ago
        You seem to not realize many email providers just drop emails (often after accepting it) instead of putting it in spam folders. So even your suggestion is of no help in that situation.
  • the_angry_angel 5y ago
    > I hear this all the time, but I question how true it is. I've been running my own mail servers for decades, and I've never had any problems with sending or receiving mail. I suspect anyone who properly configures their server will be fine. At work I ran email servers professionally and with good deliverability for years. My own email server was arguably longer lived than those at work, just much lower volumes. IP block was clean, DKIM, SPF, rDNS, etc. all setup correctly. I thought I had no deliverability issues. I interacted with mailing lists regularly, the odd email to friends and family and I was firmly in your camp until I had to deal with a death in the family. I think this was shortly after Microsoft BPOS became Office365. It became very very clear very very rapidly that to certain orgs I just wasn't hitting the inbox. And there was jack shit I could do about it. That was the end of my mail server, and it's certainly got worse over time.
• mysterydip 5y ago
  The most frustrating part is someone who isn't getting your mail will blame it on you. "I get everyone else's (gmail/outlook) email, it must be you."
  • BlueTemplar 5y ago
    Hmm, guess it's time for a counter-attack : "Sorry, but it's too much hassle to send e-mail to gmail/outlook, please use another provider if you want to communicate." ?
    • floren 5y ago
      I post on a mailing list where one member has configured his server to reject all emails from Gmail. Inevitably we end up getting messages sent to the list which begin, "Direct emails to <guy> are being rejected, so I'm sending it via the list, sorry for the noise!" The unspoken "you silly prick" gets louder every time this happens.
      • BlueTemplar 5y ago
        So, you just give up and leave control to bad actors ?
  • dqv 5y ago
    And my retort is “that you know of”. If mine isn’t getting to you, who else’s isn’t? (For businesspeople) how much business are you losing because Google isn’t letting mail through? It’s one thing if the server is declining email and telling you why. It’s another thing to silently hide email.
• sharklazer 5y ago
  Having run my own email for the last two years, this is the number one problem I encounter. Somehow every official step published in terms of standards for securing email servers is not enough to appease large provider such that they’ll deliver your mail and not relegate it to spam.
• emsy 5y ago
  Every time my artisanal mails went to spam it was an overzealous corporate spam filter (mostly for mails with attachments). Never from one of the big hosts.
• judge2020 5y ago
  Sending to Gmail/Workspace and O365 is by far the easiest case for me. It's the random enterprise email servers that don't like new gTLDs like '.xyz' who cause the most headache.
• behringer 5y ago
  The only problem I've had are with small players. You can't seem to reach anybody in charge of configuring and they do stupid shit that doesn't actually work. The big players all have a process and followup within days.
• daneel_w 5y ago
  My own experience from running a private e-mail server the past 5-6 years is that the problem more than anything else is garbage "e-mail gateway" products, like e.g. Cyren GlobalView and Proofpoint, that gets in the way. There's a tendency to perma-reject e-mail coming from "not seen before" domains despite the e-mail passing FCrDNS + SPF + DKIM + DMARC validation, which makes it difficult for private e-mail server users to get through to people.
• greggsy 5y ago
  The suggestion that they will try muscle you out to maintain their monopoly is a bit alarmist. If you’re not sending spam, and your email infrastructure includes strong DMARC and SPF policies, then it’s unlikely that your reputation will be tarnished simply because it isn’t part of the Gmail or Exchange Online ecosystems. I’d argue that the vast bulk of email is sent from dedicated providers like Sendgrid which are built on the same tech that might be found in any given ‘artisanal’ on-prem service.
• Gigachad 5y ago
  >just because they can and will do anything to maintain their monopoly. This is a popular opinion on HN but it doesn't seem at all inline with reality. Email isn't exactly a real money maker for anyone. And the amount of email spam and abuse is immense. Filtering out most unknown providers is unfortunately extremely effective. Almost all spam wiped out with a simple check. Maybe the ideal solution would be to let you link your custom email domain with a google account so you can have your google account vouch for the legitimacy of your custom domain. But even then, some of the time your email server actually is just blasting out spam without you knowing it.
  • OvidNaso 5y ago
    Email itself maybe is not a money maker, but my company just went to 365 and 90% of the justification to management is "were switching email providers". Microsoft and Google's small business offerings are inextricably dependent on email first.