4 ms·

For those interested, I made a post related to this topic a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31180379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3

by warent 4y ago

For those interested, I made a post related to this topic a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31180379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31180379

johnklos 4y ago
You start with the premise that you can't host your own email, which is problematic. I don't know why the people who fail at self-hosting email are so adamant about telling others that nobody should self-host, but it seems more like a squeaky wheel problem than a real one. In every scenario, deliverability problems can be solved by smarthosting through a reputable email provider. Period. You get all the benefits of your own filtering, your own logs showing every delivery attempt, you get to store your data on your own systems, access it however you prefer, et cetera - all the reasons to self-host are there except for delivery logs, and those can be arranged through your smarthost provider. Simple, huh? So why are so many people emphatically telling us to NOT self-host email?
- leohonexus 4y ago
  > In every scenario, deliverability problems can be solved by smarthosting through a reputable email provider. Period. Could you provide an example of such a smarthost email provider that has the benefits you mentioned? Not challenging you, just genuinely curious.
  - johnklos 4y ago
    Sure! I would never recommend, for instance, Dreamhost, but I set up a company's smarthosting with Dreamhost because the company was already using them. Dreamhost in general, though, is quite spammy. Linode and Panix come to mind. Really, though, many hosting companies won't necessarily list "smart hosting" / "smarthosting" as a service. If they offer a cheap VPS and offer outgoing SMTP, you can set up smarthosting through a VPS. One can even smarthost through Outlook / Gmail, if you really want.
    - pseudalopex 4y ago
      Deliverability problems sending from VPS providers like Linode are common. The article mentioned using a VPS.
      - johnklos 4y ago
        Sending via a VPS is not the same as sending through the VPS provider's email servers. Providers usually have their own outgoing SMTP servers for their clients with people who make sure that deliverability is always working, so sending through those is much more likely to work than sending directly from a VPS.
        pseudalopex 4y ago
        You said through a VPS. Not the VPS provider's email servers. And you suggested Linode. It looks like you can't send through their servers.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  If you're sending through someone else then you're not self hosting!
  - johnklos 4y ago
    Actually, yes, you are still self-hosting: You're in control of all deliveries to you, so you can grep through your logs and see any and every delivery attempt, which you can't do with, say, Gmail. You can store your data however you like, with as many (or as few) security considerations as you please. Want full disk and OS encryption with a Yubikey that has to be physically present when you boot the system? Sure! Want to encase it in a cube of concrete? Install your server at the top of a tree? Why not? Want to store all of your email encrypted in memory? Go for it! You can back it up as you like, you can make sure nobody else sees or indexes it, you can access it via command line, webmail, IMAP, POP, whatever. You can more (less) your spool file directly. You can overwrite the disk where the mail was stored when you delete it. It's up to you. Smarthosting does mean you have less control at delivery time, though. For instance, I can choose to refuse to deliver email to domains that don't negotiate TLS. Smarthosting doesn't easily allow this (or at least I don't know of any way to do this). But every other part will still be 100% in your control.

by warent 4y ago

For those interested, I made a post related to this topic a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31180379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31180379

johnklos 4y ago

You start with the premise that you can't host your own email, which is problematic. I don't know why the people who fail at self-hosting email are so adamant about telling others that nobody should self-host, but it seems more like a squeaky wheel problem than a real one. In every scenario, deliverability problems can be solved by smarthosting through a reputable email provider. Period. You get all the benefits of your own filtering, your own logs showing every delivery attempt, you get to store your data on your own systems, access it however you prefer, et cetera - all the reasons to self-host are there except for delivery logs, and those can be arranged through your smarthost provider. Simple, huh? So why are so many people emphatically telling us to NOT self-host email?

leohonexus 4y ago
> In every scenario, deliverability problems can be solved by smarthosting through a reputable email provider. Period. Could you provide an example of such a smarthost email provider that has the benefits you mentioned? Not challenging you, just genuinely curious.
- johnklos 4y ago
  Sure! I would never recommend, for instance, Dreamhost, but I set up a company's smarthosting with Dreamhost because the company was already using them. Dreamhost in general, though, is quite spammy. Linode and Panix come to mind. Really, though, many hosting companies won't necessarily list "smart hosting" / "smarthosting" as a service. If they offer a cheap VPS and offer outgoing SMTP, you can set up smarthosting through a VPS. One can even smarthost through Outlook / Gmail, if you really want.
  - pseudalopex 4y ago
    Deliverability problems sending from VPS providers like Linode are common. The article mentioned using a VPS.
    - johnklos 4y ago
      Sending via a VPS is not the same as sending through the VPS provider's email servers. Providers usually have their own outgoing SMTP servers for their clients with people who make sure that deliverability is always working, so sending through those is much more likely to work than sending directly from a VPS.
      - pseudalopex 4y ago
        You said through a VPS. Not the VPS provider's email servers. And you suggested Linode. It looks like you can't send through their servers.
Dylan16807 4y ago
If you're sending through someone else then you're not self hosting!
- johnklos 4y ago
  Actually, yes, you are still self-hosting: You're in control of all deliveries to you, so you can grep through your logs and see any and every delivery attempt, which you can't do with, say, Gmail. You can store your data however you like, with as many (or as few) security considerations as you please. Want full disk and OS encryption with a Yubikey that has to be physically present when you boot the system? Sure! Want to encase it in a cube of concrete? Install your server at the top of a tree? Why not? Want to store all of your email encrypted in memory? Go for it! You can back it up as you like, you can make sure nobody else sees or indexes it, you can access it via command line, webmail, IMAP, POP, whatever. You can more (less) your spool file directly. You can overwrite the disk where the mail was stored when you delete it. It's up to you. Smarthosting does mean you have less control at delivery time, though. For instance, I can choose to refuse to deliver email to domains that don't negotiate TLS. Smarthosting doesn't easily allow this (or at least I don't know of any way to do this). But every other part will still be 100% in your control.