4 ms·

I've been running my own email since i was 14 years old, back then it was hosted on my home ADSL connection. Now I'm on fiber and still running my own email set

by dusted 5y ago

I've been running my own email since i was 14 years old, back then it was hosted on my home ADSL connection. Now I'm on fiber and still running my own email setup, but the end is near.. For the reason not mentioned in the article, it's getting increasingly harder to actually get a public routable static IP address and also be allowed to either send traffic on port 25, or use the ISPs relay host to actually send the email.

moltar 5y ago
Can you host it on vultr? Just $2.50/mo for half a gig of RAM instance.
- adtac 5y ago
  I don't think you get a static IPv4 address with that instance.
  - baggachipz 5y ago
    Not anymore. The one with IPV4 is $3.50/mo now.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  This defeats the entire point of selfhosting whether it's for security concerns or autonomy. The ecological impact of VPS hosting every single service you need is also not negligible: datacenters require huge amounts of resources and infrastructure which a simple second-hand machine at home doesn't. (also worth mentioning: email protocols were explicitly conceived so that uptime is not a worry)
  - elondaits 5y ago
    Datacenters use energy and computer resources more efficiently than a machine at home, unless the machine at home is already running some other tasks that you can't move to the datacenter. A computer that's 99% idle is wasting most of the energy it consumes.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      > Datacenters use energy and computer resources more efficiently That is both true and misleading. Once the datacenter and all surrounding infrastructure (optic fibers, fuel pit, dedicated electricity lines, cooling equipment) and all server/networking hardware has been built, then you start having a better efficiency. If the whole cycle is taken into account, there's no way VPS can be as "green" as selfhosting. A computer will usually take more energy to build than it will consume over its entire lifetime, so repurposing an existing machine is a good way to go (if you consider minerals-related pollution, even more so). Also, when you're in a datacenter, servers will be changed every few years. For something as simple/lightweight as email, a 20y old computer will do just fine. A datacenter will renew its entire hardware a few times in that timeframe. > A computer that's 99% idle is wasting most of the energy it consumes That is true whether it's in a datacenter or at home. But of course you can share/mutualize resources with other people in order to mitigate this.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    If someone who downvoted has better arguments than the industry's propaganda, i'm all ears.
phh 5y ago
Some ISPs provide VPNs on their AS at cheapish price. For instant milkywan in France provide one with public constant IPv4 for 5€/month in France. It obviously make the whole setup much more complicated, because it leads to a kinda multi-homing setup, but I think it's still reasonable.
ssl232 5y ago
How often do you need to send on port 25? In my experience also running my own mail server, never. Receive from servers that don't support encryption yes, but never send. I always send using TLS and since maybe 5 years I've not had an issue with a receiving server not supporting it.
- 0x0 5y ago
  If you want to deliver email to other domains then you need to connect to port 25 on the destination domain MX server. As far as I know, best practice for the other ports (465, 587) is to require authentication and to reject anonymous submissions.
  - ssl232 5y ago
    Port 25 is only required if the destination doesn't support TLS, I think. I've not opened port 25 outgoing on my server and I've had zero issues delivering sent mail to other servers for maybe 5 years. I think OP might have meant "receiving on port 25 is getting difficult" rather than sending. The spec requires servers to support unencrypted deliveries over port 25, even though almost all servers use TLS these days.
    - 0x0 5y ago
      Even with TLS, that is usually handled by issuing STARTTLS on TCP port 25. I can't find anything in the RFCs mentioning server-to-server smtp delivery happening on anything but port 25? Do you have a reference for that? In fact, even the MX for google domains (aspmx.l.google.com) does not listen on TCP port 465 or 587, only 25.
      - ssl232 5y ago
        I'm not certain, so you might be more informed than me. It's possible my server is sending on port 25 and since the firewall I use doesn't block outgoing connection I just didn't notice. TIL!
southerntofu 5y ago
There's a few ways to approach this question. One is to mention community networks (DIY ISPs) which will ensure you always have a public IP without filtering. Some even provide VPN access so that you can use your filtered internet to acquire a publicly-routable IP. This is a common pattern in the ffdn.org federation of non-profit ISPs. Another one is to mention hosting coops (libreho.st/chatons.org) and how they could be employed in limited-network situations. On the web, we have SNI/eSNI-aware proxying which enables multiple servers to share a single IP without revealing their private keys to the reverse proxy. I don't know of an equivalent in the email world (because it's assumed there is only one MX with a canonical domain/DKIM per IP), but i'm all ears if you have suggestions! Of course, we could mention onionMX and other key-routing systems (CJDNS..) but the problem is you need it to be supported on the other side as well, which is highly unlikely.

by dusted 5y ago

moltar 5y ago

Can you host it on vultr? Just $2.50/mo for half a gig of RAM instance.

adtac 5y ago
I don't think you get a static IPv4 address with that instance.
- baggachipz 5y ago
  Not anymore. The one with IPV4 is $3.50/mo now.
southerntofu 5y ago
This defeats the entire point of selfhosting whether it's for security concerns or autonomy. The ecological impact of VPS hosting every single service you need is also not negligible: datacenters require huge amounts of resources and infrastructure which a simple second-hand machine at home doesn't. (also worth mentioning: email protocols were explicitly conceived so that uptime is not a worry)
- elondaits 5y ago
  Datacenters use energy and computer resources more efficiently than a machine at home, unless the machine at home is already running some other tasks that you can't move to the datacenter. A computer that's 99% idle is wasting most of the energy it consumes.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    > Datacenters use energy and computer resources more efficiently That is both true and misleading. Once the datacenter and all surrounding infrastructure (optic fibers, fuel pit, dedicated electricity lines, cooling equipment) and all server/networking hardware has been built, then you start having a better efficiency. If the whole cycle is taken into account, there's no way VPS can be as "green" as selfhosting. A computer will usually take more energy to build than it will consume over its entire lifetime, so repurposing an existing machine is a good way to go (if you consider minerals-related pollution, even more so). Also, when you're in a datacenter, servers will be changed every few years. For something as simple/lightweight as email, a 20y old computer will do just fine. A datacenter will renew its entire hardware a few times in that timeframe. > A computer that's 99% idle is wasting most of the energy it consumes That is true whether it's in a datacenter or at home. But of course you can share/mutualize resources with other people in order to mitigate this.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  If someone who downvoted has better arguments than the industry's propaganda, i'm all ears.

phh 5y ago

Some ISPs provide VPNs on their AS at cheapish price. For instant milkywan in France provide one with public constant IPv4 for 5€/month in France. It obviously make the whole setup much more complicated, because it leads to a kinda multi-homing setup, but I think it's still reasonable.

ssl232 5y ago

How often do you need to send on port 25? In my experience also running my own mail server, never. Receive from servers that don't support encryption yes, but never send. I always send using TLS and since maybe 5 years I've not had an issue with a receiving server not supporting it.

0x0 5y ago
If you want to deliver email to other domains then you need to connect to port 25 on the destination domain MX server. As far as I know, best practice for the other ports (465, 587) is to require authentication and to reject anonymous submissions.
- ssl232 5y ago
  Port 25 is only required if the destination doesn't support TLS, I think. I've not opened port 25 outgoing on my server and I've had zero issues delivering sent mail to other servers for maybe 5 years. I think OP might have meant "receiving on port 25 is getting difficult" rather than sending. The spec requires servers to support unencrypted deliveries over port 25, even though almost all servers use TLS these days.
  - 0x0 5y ago
    Even with TLS, that is usually handled by issuing STARTTLS on TCP port 25. I can't find anything in the RFCs mentioning server-to-server smtp delivery happening on anything but port 25? Do you have a reference for that? In fact, even the MX for google domains (aspmx.l.google.com) does not listen on TCP port 465 or 587, only 25.
    - ssl232 5y ago
      I'm not certain, so you might be more informed than me. It's possible my server is sending on port 25 and since the firewall I use doesn't block outgoing connection I just didn't notice. TIL!

southerntofu 5y ago

There's a few ways to approach this question. One is to mention community networks (DIY ISPs) which will ensure you always have a public IP without filtering. Some even provide VPN access so that you can use your filtered internet to acquire a publicly-routable IP. This is a common pattern in the ffdn.org federation of non-profit ISPs. Another one is to mention hosting coops (libreho.st/chatons.org) and how they could be employed in limited-network situations. On the web, we have SNI/eSNI-aware proxying which enables multiple servers to share a single IP without revealing their private keys to the reverse proxy. I don't know of an equivalent in the email world (because it's assumed there is only one MX with a canonical domain/DKIM per IP), but i'm all ears if you have suggestions! Of course, we could mention onionMX and other key-routing systems (CJDNS..) but the problem is you need it to be supported on the other side as well, which is highly unlikely.