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I do. For many years I have run a Mail in a Box server hosted on Digital Ocean. I like it very much and have had no problems. MIAB is a wonderful piece of scrip

I do. For many years I have run a Mail in a Box server hosted on Digital Ocean. I like it very much and have had no problems. MIAB is a wonderful piece of scriptware. The guy promises to follow best practices in all things and, as best I can tell, he delivers. I have rarely had any problem with deliverability or anything else. I continue to do so for several reasons, hosting multiple domains, ad hoc addresses, etc, but the biggest surprise reason is a completely not email one. It hosts DNS. I LOVE hosting my own DNS. The first and most important reason is that, unlike all of the other services, there is no delay getting new records on to the net. Until MIAB, the 'will be updated in 20 minutes' thing drove me nuts. It made doing programmer stuff that relied on DNS incredibly annoying. Now, my LetsEncrypt proof is there instantly. Of course, not being reliant on the good will of Google or having to decide if it's worth another $3.50/month for another address are all good things. But, the other main reason I choose to host my own server is, also why the MIAB guy makes it possible, to cast off the shackles of the corporate overlords. It is bad to allow a mission critical function to be owned by five big companies. Much like the current consequences of having relied on Twitter for our short form public communication, I see the move to the decentralized Mastodon as similar to my implementation of MIAB. It is, for me, a blow in favor of internet freedom and robustness.

smcn 4y ago
This is off topic but are you able to go further into how you're doing DNS or is there perhaps a jumping off point that you can direct me to? Oddly fascinated by it and you make compelling points.
- johnklos 4y ago
  Ha ha ha... Perhaps we should have an "Ask HN: Do You Host Your Own DNS?" thread ;) Running BIND is very simple, and there're lots of how-tos and some excellent O'Reilly books, too. You can run your own DNS on a VPS, on a machine on a static IP, or even on a residential address, if it doesn't change too often. If it does change, you can run your primary on your home and have a public machine be a secondary. It opens up so many possibilities :D
  - smcn 4y ago
    Thanks, I appreciate that a lot! Guess this is my project for over Christmas.
    - thunderbong 4y ago
      Mail-in-a-box is seriously awesome. I was super impressed by how easy it maid emauk hosting for me after hear all the FUD about housing your own email. My suggestion is to get a new domain and then try it with that. Once everything works, and your IP reputation is in the clear, you can port your other email domains as well.
      - smcn 4y ago
        I appreciate that a lot, thank you!
  - zimpenfish 4y ago
    I do! tinydns and dnscache all the way (although considering alternatives that aren't BIND[1]); only problem I've had was the auto-SOA generation which the .is people didn't like (they want each NS to have the same SOA) but since I generate the data file with a script anyway, it was an easy tweak to make that SOA a known value. [1] Historical issues with running at an ISP in the late 90s and the various security issues since.
- tqwhite 4y ago
  Mail in a Box just does this as part of its natural installation. It works with a conventional DNS server but, if you point the domain at its internal one, new email accounts in new domains are up and running automatically. I agree with the other commenter that running BIND is not too difficult but, if you are going to run a server, MIAB is a good way to kill both birds, mail and DNS. Also, the MIAB DNS UI is good.
abdullahkhalids 4y ago
I have also been using mailinabox for over an year on Hetzner. While on rare cases emails I send will not go through, I will always receive emails. So I am slowly moving my user accounts email addresses from gmail over to my own domain.
kevincox 4y ago
I'm surprised you are having much success on Digital Ocean. I've found that their whole ASN is often marked as low reputation. For example sending to Microsoft or Apple has always been unreliable for me. It does seem that it can depend somewhat on what IP you roll. I guess if you get a good one and stick to it you may be able to scrape by with just the ASN reputation holding you back. Source: I run a service that sends email on Digital Ocean and I have to use third-party services to send to many hosts. (in fact I tend to whitelist inbox providers slowly once we have built some domain reputation)
- tqwhite 4y ago
  For awhile I had trouble with Yahoo and a couple of others. I also had to get off a couple of spam lists. There was one big service that troubled me for years, can't remember which. But, the years went by and I guess my IP address got a better reputation. I haven't had a deliverability problem in years. Maybe it's because I got better at the SPF's, DMARC's, etc. I will say that I think it's an internet sin that these big companies make it hard for individuals to run their own servers. It seems like an attempt to make a corporate monopoly. My server has never been used for spam a single time. There is no reason I should not have been able to remedy problems instantly.
throwaway67743 4y ago
DO is probably the worst choice as they have one of the worst reputations for emitting trash... I drop do entirely and have done for a few years, nothing appears to come from there apart from trash though so I haven't noticed any problems there. Literally anyone else (even ovh these days) would be a better choice for delivery success.
- quags 4y ago
  I raise the asn of do a bit using the asn module for rspamd. Same goes for ips in rbls - score higher and take a complete picture score using multiple data points. There are legitimate systems on do and you never know the email you don’t get unless someone goes out of your way to send email another way. Personally I get more spam from gmail and outlook than digital ocean but obviously due to both of their sizes it probably is less than a provider like do overall.
  - throwaway67743 4y ago
    Fair points, if I'm expecting an email though and don't get one I just check logs, which I do regularly anyway as often mail isn't delivered due to sender's provider incompetence (dkim is hard apparently) - but I guess it also depends if you're expecting mail from random people in which case you'd probably want to be a bit more lenient yeah. Also re Gmail etc that is also true, but the difference there is it's limited to a couple whereas do also emits general abuse under the guise of "researchers" without identity or contact details etc - until they stop doing that they'll forever remain dropped entirely
ajdude 4y ago
Also mail in a box user here, runs on a VM with both a static IP V4 and IP V6 along with all of the DNS fun that comes with it. Mailinabox just works, and I use it for my whole family.

smcn 4y ago

This is off topic but are you able to go further into how you're doing DNS or is there perhaps a jumping off point that you can direct me to? Oddly fascinated by it and you make compelling points.

johnklos 4y ago
Ha ha ha... Perhaps we should have an "Ask HN: Do You Host Your Own DNS?" thread ;) Running BIND is very simple, and there're lots of how-tos and some excellent O'Reilly books, too. You can run your own DNS on a VPS, on a machine on a static IP, or even on a residential address, if it doesn't change too often. If it does change, you can run your primary on your home and have a public machine be a secondary. It opens up so many possibilities :D
- smcn 4y ago
  Thanks, I appreciate that a lot! Guess this is my project for over Christmas.
  - thunderbong 4y ago
    Mail-in-a-box is seriously awesome. I was super impressed by how easy it maid emauk hosting for me after hear all the FUD about housing your own email. My suggestion is to get a new domain and then try it with that. Once everything works, and your IP reputation is in the clear, you can port your other email domains as well.
    - smcn 4y ago
      I appreciate that a lot, thank you!
- zimpenfish 4y ago
  I do! tinydns and dnscache all the way (although considering alternatives that aren't BIND[1]); only problem I've had was the auto-SOA generation which the .is people didn't like (they want each NS to have the same SOA) but since I generate the data file with a script anyway, it was an easy tweak to make that SOA a known value. [1] Historical issues with running at an ISP in the late 90s and the various security issues since.
tqwhite 4y ago
Mail in a Box just does this as part of its natural installation. It works with a conventional DNS server but, if you point the domain at its internal one, new email accounts in new domains are up and running automatically. I agree with the other commenter that running BIND is not too difficult but, if you are going to run a server, MIAB is a good way to kill both birds, mail and DNS. Also, the MIAB DNS UI is good.

abdullahkhalids 4y ago

I have also been using mailinabox for over an year on Hetzner. While on rare cases emails I send will not go through, I will always receive emails. So I am slowly moving my user accounts email addresses from gmail over to my own domain.

kevincox 4y ago

I'm surprised you are having much success on Digital Ocean. I've found that their whole ASN is often marked as low reputation. For example sending to Microsoft or Apple has always been unreliable for me. It does seem that it can depend somewhat on what IP you roll. I guess if you get a good one and stick to it you may be able to scrape by with just the ASN reputation holding you back. Source: I run a service that sends email on Digital Ocean and I have to use third-party services to send to many hosts. (in fact I tend to whitelist inbox providers slowly once we have built some domain reputation)

tqwhite 4y ago
For awhile I had trouble with Yahoo and a couple of others. I also had to get off a couple of spam lists. There was one big service that troubled me for years, can't remember which. But, the years went by and I guess my IP address got a better reputation. I haven't had a deliverability problem in years. Maybe it's because I got better at the SPF's, DMARC's, etc. I will say that I think it's an internet sin that these big companies make it hard for individuals to run their own servers. It seems like an attempt to make a corporate monopoly. My server has never been used for spam a single time. There is no reason I should not have been able to remedy problems instantly.

throwaway67743 4y ago

DO is probably the worst choice as they have one of the worst reputations for emitting trash... I drop do entirely and have done for a few years, nothing appears to come from there apart from trash though so I haven't noticed any problems there. Literally anyone else (even ovh these days) would be a better choice for delivery success.

quags 4y ago
I raise the asn of do a bit using the asn module for rspamd. Same goes for ips in rbls - score higher and take a complete picture score using multiple data points. There are legitimate systems on do and you never know the email you don’t get unless someone goes out of your way to send email another way. Personally I get more spam from gmail and outlook than digital ocean but obviously due to both of their sizes it probably is less than a provider like do overall.
- throwaway67743 4y ago
  Fair points, if I'm expecting an email though and don't get one I just check logs, which I do regularly anyway as often mail isn't delivered due to sender's provider incompetence (dkim is hard apparently) - but I guess it also depends if you're expecting mail from random people in which case you'd probably want to be a bit more lenient yeah. Also re Gmail etc that is also true, but the difference there is it's limited to a couple whereas do also emits general abuse under the guise of "researchers" without identity or contact details etc - until they stop doing that they'll forever remain dropped entirely

ajdude 4y ago

Also mail in a box user here, runs on a VM with both a static IP V4 and IP V6 along with all of the DNS fun that comes with it. Mailinabox just works, and I use it for my whole family.