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Please do not let a story like that discourage you from running your own mail server. I am really worried about the future where 2-3 adtech corporations control

by jwr 2y ago

Please do not let a story like that discourage you from running your own mail server. I am really worried about the future where 2-3 adtech corporations control what we receive and read, and we are not far away from that future. As a counterpoint, I have been running my own E-mail server for the last 25 years or so, and haven't found it to be terribly problematic. Yes, there is an occasional issue, but I'd rather control my mail, than hand it off to someone else.

martin_a 2y ago
I'd second this. Get yourself some managed hosting package with a TLD at Hetzner or somebody like them and run your own stuff. NextCloud with calendars, mail, maybe a blog will cost you sth. like 3 Euro/month. That's totally fine and the hardest part is finding a good domain name anyways. :-D
TheDong 2y ago
[flagged]
- hnhg 2y ago
  "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes."
  - e40 2y ago
    [flagged]
bluGill 2y ago
Don't let the ad companies run your email. There are a number of large email providers who are not ad companies and so have your interest at heart. I moved my email to fastmail over a decade ago and I don't miss running it myself, people who have moved to one of the other non-ad providers also report good results (though fastmail tends to get the largest share of responses when someone suggests running your own)
- brongondwana 2y ago
  Obviously :) We're just the best! More: Fastmail is a bunch of techies who really enjoy working with email and unlike a lot of the big companies we have a core of people who've been doing this stuff for 20 years, but are also keeping up with (or even writing) the latest standards. It's a good combination. ok, ok - I haven't been at Fastmail for 20 years yet. That's still a couple of weeks away.
  - andrewSC 2y ago
    As a user going on 5+ years now I just wanted to say thanks! Reassuring to hear the team is passionate about what they’re building.
  - hungie 2y ago
    Fastmail is such an obviously better choice than Gmail these days. I moved over a few years ago, and I have zero regrets. I'm a bit nervous that someday they'll sell out or run out of things to build and enshittification will set in, but honestly I haven't seen anything like that yet. The day they start trying to put AI trash in Fastmail, though, is the day I start looking elsewhere.
    - kwanbix 2y ago
      How is it better? Honest question.
      - bluGill 2y ago
        They are not an ad company at all and so they don't have a division making a lot of money tracking you. Even if you pay for gmail, that ad division is making a lot more money and is looking for why to track you.
      - homebrewer 2y ago
        This applies to any commercial service (I am using a different one, but it's all the same): no tracking because they have no incentive to (they have the opposite incentive, actually), and responsive support provided by real humans when you need it. Search on HN or elsewhere for what happens when Google's automated systems ban your account and you lose access to email and everything tied to it. You have no recourse and no chance to recover it unless you have inside contacts or manage to stir up a social media shitstorm. You can also use your own domain (for example, tied to your real identity: firstname@lastname.com) and move it to a different provider if your current one goes to pieces. Additionally, I use a separate email address for each service (hn@domain.com, paypal@domain.com, amazon@domain.com, etc.) and can simply remove the alias if it starts receiving spam. You know then who leaked your email to spammers. You can add a random "IV" to be sure (i.e. amazon-5VoXwj5@domain.com).
flyinghamster 2y ago
I've done so as well, and once it's fine-tuned it isn't a huge deal. But, I'm getting old now, and now that it's time to upgrade my mail server, I'm wondering if I should jump to a hosting service (or SMTP service) instead. I've never had deliverability problems with Google, Hotmail, Comcast, or Charter, but AT&T has always been hostile to me.
- MaKey 2y ago
  You could go with https://mailcow.email https://mailcow.email, it's pretty easy to setup and keep up to date.
  - throw0101b 2y ago
    Or, if you don't want to do the Docker thing and have daemons running on a 'regular' (Debian) system: * https://workaround.org/ispmail-bookworm/ https://workaround.org/ispmail-bookworm/ (They include instructions for upgrading from their previous iterations, e.g., buster->bullseye->bookworm.)
dspillett 2y ago
Same. Though as mine is getting to the point I want to change things around quite a bit, I am wondering if I really have the time or if I should go “hosted”. Running your own mail can be harder from the start than from our position of having done it for years though. All the things that we know and learned one at a time as they came up, a new mail admin needs to learn at the start. Also, I have old domains with no bad rep, and my mail is sent from static IPs that have been reputationally clean for all the time I've had them (well over a decade). If you run your mail server on a VPS provider you might have more trouble from their IP range than I have from mine (though you do always have the option of paying a little for a relay service like mxroute which will deal with deliverability problems for you).
dewey 2y ago
> Yes, there is an occasional issue For me it's quite the opposite, I'd rather let someone who does nothing else all day than providing email services to people for money handle the occasional issue.
layer8 2y ago
Same. The last time I had to change something for my email server was to add SPF and DMARC support five years ago or so, and that was well-documented and pain-free. Regarding the SpamAssassin issue, TFA doesn’t clarify whether it’s Validity or SpamAssassin that is using the DNSWL interface wrong.
irunmyownemail 2y ago
25 years for me too, 2 issues in 25 years. A few years ago, someone on reddit suggested to stop using Spamassassin so I did and found it didn't have much of an impact. I also have my own service I wrote which checks a few things Postfix doesn't and that helps but overall it's not difficult, it is a hobby that demands some of your personal time but I feel it's worth it.
stackskipton 2y ago
I used to run my own but for 8 bucks a month (spouse and me) to hand it off to Microsoft, it quickly became a no brainer. Not to mention running my own helped me be a better SRE back in the day, most businesses handed it off as well and it wasn't a skill worth me knowing outside the basics of SMTP.
mort96 2y ago
At the same time, don't run your own mail server. E-mail is not, in practice, a federated protocol which anyone can participate in. E-mail is, in practice, a protocol where Microsoft, Apple and Google can send mail between each others' systems. Stop using e-mail.
- gsich 2y ago
  It is. Don't let people who don't run mailservers tell you otherwise.
- kstrauser 2y ago
  That’s one problem I never had. With DKIM, SPF, and the other right DNS records in place, I had no worse trouble with deliverability in general than I do with a large host. Every couple of years I’d try to email someone with an rule like “don’t accept email from a VPS, at all, ever”, and shrug it off because they were already use to discarding a huge chunk of valid email so what’s one more.
- justsomehnguy 2y ago
  > Stop using e-mail. Right after everyone and your grandma stop using e-mail as a UUID. No, phone number doesn't cut.
  - mort96 2y ago
    No, that's the one thing e-mail actually works decently well for. Just stop using it for all these other things.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
casenmgreen 2y ago
I've been running my own for about a decade or so. Recently, I finally gave up running my own outbound email, because I realized that no matter what I do, I'm still being blocked based on my IP address. I now pay FastMail 5 USD a month basically for their IP address, using them for outbound email only. Email is anyway inherently and fundamentally inadequate for security. I'd rather not use it at all now, and stop having an email address.
noAnswer 2y ago
I run my own mail server since 7 years. (OpenSMTPD and Dovecot for IMAP (NextCloud for contacts and calendar) on OpenBSD.) Apart from rDNS and FCrDNS (which the connecting host has to have) I don't have a Spam filter (and never had). I create a new mail address for everything. (name-number@...) I have gotten like ~2 Spam mails. (I still have my 25 year old GMX address. (I even have premium.) I use it for my providers in order not to create a chicken and egg problem. Only my MX is public. Everything else is behind a VPN.)
graemep 2y ago
I have only been running my own mail server for about two years, and the only problem I have is delivering to Hotmail. It has become a lot easier than it used to be thanks to things like Mailinabox.
zimpenfish 2y ago
> I have been running my own E-mail server for the last 25 years or so, and haven't found it to be terribly problematic. Not quite 25 yet but approaching and same view. Keeping on top of DKIM and SPF and all that have reduced the "I can't send mail to XYZ" issues. Pretty much the only thing I get now is family being temporarily locked out of SMTP by fail2ban when the automatic family-unbanner has missed that entry.
adrian_b 2y ago
Supporting your counterpoint, I have been also running my own E-mail server for the last 20 years. There were occasional issues, mostly a few years ago, with the big providers dropping silently messages or delaying them by a day or so, but eventually it has always worked well. This year has been a hassle with the new rules forced by Google, but during most years the time spent with managing the E-mail server has been completely negligible.

by jwr 2y ago

martin_a 2y ago

I'd second this. Get yourself some managed hosting package with a TLD at Hetzner or somebody like them and run your own stuff. NextCloud with calendars, mail, maybe a blog will cost you sth. like 3 Euro/month. That's totally fine and the hardest part is finding a good domain name anyways. :-D

TheDong 2y ago

[flagged]

hnhg 2y ago
"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes."
- e40 2y ago
  [flagged]

bluGill 2y ago

Don't let the ad companies run your email. There are a number of large email providers who are not ad companies and so have your interest at heart. I moved my email to fastmail over a decade ago and I don't miss running it myself, people who have moved to one of the other non-ad providers also report good results (though fastmail tends to get the largest share of responses when someone suggests running your own)

brongondwana 2y ago
Obviously :) We're just the best! More: Fastmail is a bunch of techies who really enjoy working with email and unlike a lot of the big companies we have a core of people who've been doing this stuff for 20 years, but are also keeping up with (or even writing) the latest standards. It's a good combination. ok, ok - I haven't been at Fastmail for 20 years yet. That's still a couple of weeks away.
- andrewSC 2y ago
  As a user going on 5+ years now I just wanted to say thanks! Reassuring to hear the team is passionate about what they’re building.
- hungie 2y ago
  Fastmail is such an obviously better choice than Gmail these days. I moved over a few years ago, and I have zero regrets. I'm a bit nervous that someday they'll sell out or run out of things to build and enshittification will set in, but honestly I haven't seen anything like that yet. The day they start trying to put AI trash in Fastmail, though, is the day I start looking elsewhere.
  - kwanbix 2y ago
    How is it better? Honest question.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      They are not an ad company at all and so they don't have a division making a lot of money tracking you. Even if you pay for gmail, that ad division is making a lot more money and is looking for why to track you.
    - homebrewer 2y ago
      This applies to any commercial service (I am using a different one, but it's all the same): no tracking because they have no incentive to (they have the opposite incentive, actually), and responsive support provided by real humans when you need it. Search on HN or elsewhere for what happens when Google's automated systems ban your account and you lose access to email and everything tied to it. You have no recourse and no chance to recover it unless you have inside contacts or manage to stir up a social media shitstorm. You can also use your own domain (for example, tied to your real identity: firstname@lastname.com) and move it to a different provider if your current one goes to pieces. Additionally, I use a separate email address for each service (hn@domain.com, paypal@domain.com, amazon@domain.com, etc.) and can simply remove the alias if it starts receiving spam. You know then who leaked your email to spammers. You can add a random "IV" to be sure (i.e. amazon-5VoXwj5@domain.com).

flyinghamster 2y ago

I've done so as well, and once it's fine-tuned it isn't a huge deal. But, I'm getting old now, and now that it's time to upgrade my mail server, I'm wondering if I should jump to a hosting service (or SMTP service) instead. I've never had deliverability problems with Google, Hotmail, Comcast, or Charter, but AT&T has always been hostile to me.

MaKey 2y ago
You could go with https://mailcow.email https://mailcow.email, it's pretty easy to setup and keep up to date.
- throw0101b 2y ago
  Or, if you don't want to do the Docker thing and have daemons running on a 'regular' (Debian) system: * https://workaround.org/ispmail-bookworm/ https://workaround.org/ispmail-bookworm/ (They include instructions for upgrading from their previous iterations, e.g., buster->bullseye->bookworm.)

dspillett 2y ago

Same. Though as mine is getting to the point I want to change things around quite a bit, I am wondering if I really have the time or if I should go “hosted”. Running your own mail can be harder from the start than from our position of having done it for years though. All the things that we know and learned one at a time as they came up, a new mail admin needs to learn at the start. Also, I have old domains with no bad rep, and my mail is sent from static IPs that have been reputationally clean for all the time I've had them (well over a decade). If you run your mail server on a VPS provider you might have more trouble from their IP range than I have from mine (though you do always have the option of paying a little for a relay service like mxroute which will deal with deliverability problems for you).

dewey 2y ago

> Yes, there is an occasional issue For me it's quite the opposite, I'd rather let someone who does nothing else all day than providing email services to people for money handle the occasional issue.

layer8 2y ago

Same. The last time I had to change something for my email server was to add SPF and DMARC support five years ago or so, and that was well-documented and pain-free. Regarding the SpamAssassin issue, TFA doesn’t clarify whether it’s Validity or SpamAssassin that is using the DNSWL interface wrong.

irunmyownemail 2y ago

25 years for me too, 2 issues in 25 years. A few years ago, someone on reddit suggested to stop using Spamassassin so I did and found it didn't have much of an impact. I also have my own service I wrote which checks a few things Postfix doesn't and that helps but overall it's not difficult, it is a hobby that demands some of your personal time but I feel it's worth it.

stackskipton 2y ago

I used to run my own but for 8 bucks a month (spouse and me) to hand it off to Microsoft, it quickly became a no brainer. Not to mention running my own helped me be a better SRE back in the day, most businesses handed it off as well and it wasn't a skill worth me knowing outside the basics of SMTP.

mort96 2y ago

At the same time, don't run your own mail server. E-mail is not, in practice, a federated protocol which anyone can participate in. E-mail is, in practice, a protocol where Microsoft, Apple and Google can send mail between each others' systems. Stop using e-mail.

gsich 2y ago
It is. Don't let people who don't run mailservers tell you otherwise.
kstrauser 2y ago
That’s one problem I never had. With DKIM, SPF, and the other right DNS records in place, I had no worse trouble with deliverability in general than I do with a large host. Every couple of years I’d try to email someone with an rule like “don’t accept email from a VPS, at all, ever”, and shrug it off because they were already use to discarding a huge chunk of valid email so what’s one more.
justsomehnguy 2y ago
> Stop using e-mail. Right after everyone and your grandma stop using e-mail as a UUID. No, phone number doesn't cut.
- mort96 2y ago
  No, that's the one thing e-mail actually works decently well for. Just stop using it for all these other things.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

casenmgreen 2y ago

I've been running my own for about a decade or so. Recently, I finally gave up running my own outbound email, because I realized that no matter what I do, I'm still being blocked based on my IP address. I now pay FastMail 5 USD a month basically for their IP address, using them for outbound email only. Email is anyway inherently and fundamentally inadequate for security. I'd rather not use it at all now, and stop having an email address.

noAnswer 2y ago

I run my own mail server since 7 years. (OpenSMTPD and Dovecot for IMAP (NextCloud for contacts and calendar) on OpenBSD.) Apart from rDNS and FCrDNS (which the connecting host has to have) I don't have a Spam filter (and never had). I create a new mail address for everything. (name-number@...) I have gotten like ~2 Spam mails. (I still have my 25 year old GMX address. (I even have premium.) I use it for my providers in order not to create a chicken and egg problem. Only my MX is public. Everything else is behind a VPN.)

graemep 2y ago

I have only been running my own mail server for about two years, and the only problem I have is delivering to Hotmail. It has become a lot easier than it used to be thanks to things like Mailinabox.

zimpenfish 2y ago

> I have been running my own E-mail server for the last 25 years or so, and haven't found it to be terribly problematic. Not quite 25 yet but approaching and same view. Keeping on top of DKIM and SPF and all that have reduced the "I can't send mail to XYZ" issues. Pretty much the only thing I get now is family being temporarily locked out of SMTP by fail2ban when the automatic family-unbanner has missed that entry.

adrian_b 2y ago

Supporting your counterpoint, I have been also running my own E-mail server for the last 20 years. There were occasional issues, mostly a few years ago, with the big providers dropping silently messages or delaying them by a day or so, but eventually it has always worked well. This year has been a hassle with the new rules forced by Google, but during most years the time spent with managing the E-mail server has been completely negligible.