12 ms·

I've been getting increasingly fed up with gmail, but not quite to the point of making me set up exim. Does anybody know of a mail server I can throw on ec2 and

I've been getting increasingly fed up with gmail, but not quite to the point of making me set up exim. Does anybody know of a mail server I can throw on ec2 and forget about?

niggler 14y ago
I dont think this is a good idea -- if ec2 goes down (as it has in the past) you risk losing email
- rabidsnail 14y ago
  I risk new messages getting bounced, but all of my email is backed up on my computer. And I'd archive everything to s3 (which has never lost data to my knowledge) in case both my ec2 instance and my laptop disappeared.
- notatoad 14y ago
  SMTP doesn't just drop messages if the destination server is unavailable. It'll either get held back at an intermediary server until your server comes up again, or else it will be bounced back to the sender.
  - ams6110 14y ago
    SMTP does sometimes just drop messages, it's not a protocol that guarantees delivery
    - ars 14y ago
      That's not true. It should either send the email to the recipient or return it to sender. But it should never just drop the message (except for bounces which can be dropped since there is nowhere to send them if delivery fails).
      - danielweber 14y ago
        I think you and the parent are using different meanings of "guarantee." Yes, everything in the protocol leads to the fact that nothing should drop an email unless it has passed responsibility of it to another server which has accepted the message. In practice, lots of times things don't work.
        ams6110 14y ago
        Yes, one misconfigured server between source and destination can "eat" email and you'll never be the wiser. Doesn't happen often, but it can and the protocol does not detect it.
    - overbroad 14y ago
      An SMTP daemon will try to send the message a certain number of times, at a certain interval, then, eventually, it will stop ("bounce"). You can configure these settings if you run your own SMTP service.
- jrockway 14y ago
  There's a reason why a domain can have multiple mail exchanger records.
- icebraining 14y ago
  You can set up a different mail server with a lower priority. I run my own server on a VPS, but have Google Apps' SMTP server as backup for those cases, and it's been working fine for months.
  - overbroad 14y ago
    Assuming your ISP is not blocking port 25 and your internet address is not on some blacklist you can send mail directly from your machine. No need to use intermediary SMTP servers. Is it possible that someone people might like to use their native SMTP capability for low volume noncommercial email? Does every person who sends email have some overwhelming urge to send spam? Such that we must place pseudo control over sending email, any email whether commercial or noncommercial, in the hands of "email providers"? Good on you for running your own service.
    - icebraining 14y ago
      My ISP doesn't block port 25, but since my IP address is technically dynamic, it's on Spamhaus' Policy Black List. That said, my ISP offers SMTP servers for proxying outgoing messages, so I used that for a while. I switched to a VPS because my home server died.
      - overbroad 14y ago
        Gotta love that Spamhaus logic. Spammers use cheap dynamic IP's therefore anyone with a cheap dynamic IP that sends an email is a spammer. Is it cheaper for you to get a static IP from a VPS than from your ISP?
        DanBC 14y ago
        "Spammers use cheap dynamic IP's therefore anyone with a cheap dynamic IP that sends an email is a spammer." That's not what they're saying. "Very many spam emails come from people running an email server on a dynamic IP. Some companies were happy to host spam sending companies, and would put them in dynamic ranges so they could continue to get money from those spam sending companies and keep changing the IP address. The ratio of good email servers to bad email servers on dynamic IPs is so poor that blocking all dynamic IPs is, unfortunately, the only reasonably solution". You can be on a dynamic IP and send email. Just don't send that email from a server on a dynamic IP.
sbierwagen 14y ago
Many blacklists include all the EC2 addresses: for obvious reasons, they get used to send spam a lot.
- kylemaxwell 14y ago
  But if you're doing it legitimately, and not bulk emailing, EC2 has proper SMTP forwarders you can use. And if you ARE bulk emailing, they have a service (plus you're not using Gmail for that anyway).
- overbroad 14y ago
  Do you think that is a smart idea? To black list entire netblocks? I mean, can we assume that every person using EC2 for email is sending spam? It would seem to degrade the usefulness of EC2 for anyone wanting to run their own mailserver.
  - doesnt_know 14y ago
    It doesn't really matter if it's "a smart idea", it already happens and you have no control over it. A simple search for setting up your own mail-server is just a search for people who have done that saying "don't ever setup a personal mail server because it's guaranteed to be blacklisted". Spam has lead email to basically become this closed ecosystem. If you don't use one of the already established major email providers, ISP's or domain name registrars the reliability of email hits the floor.
    - overbroad 14y ago
      While I understand your sentiment, I respectfully disagree that it does not matter if it's a smart idea. Because if it is not a smart idea then that means we can do better. One of the projects I'm working on solves the "closed ecosystem" problem. The use of the term "closed ecosystem" is ironic because it seems to me that the "open" nature of email receiving (not sending) is what leads to the spam problem. In other words, I do not see the problem as the fact that people can send mass quantities of junk email. I see the problem as the fact that daemons accept and deliver mail from anyone. (And then resort to blacklisting.) What if the system was "closed" by default and instead a sender would contact the receiving SMTP daemon directly (no internediary) and would first need either a means of authentication (i.e. he has been pre-approved) or a way to have his sending address revieved and then receive permission to send. Right now you can see someting like this within a domain. For example, one gmail user might be able to send to another gmail user, directly, as they are both able to authenticate. They both have accounts (private accounts, not some RBL, DKIM or other scheme managed by an interloper) and these accounts can be checked. But if one gmail user wants to send to some non-gmail address, the non-gmail recipient has no knowledge of the sender in the form of an account against which he can authenticate. There's no privity between sender and receiver. Instead third party schemes are used. Such as blocklists for sending. Consider the idea of running a mailserver than only accepts mail from a predetermined set of sending addresses. What would be the chances of receiving junk mail?
DanBC 14y ago
The answer to "Gmail drops some wanted messages into the spam folder" is definitely not "set up exim" nor "set up [insert email server here]". There's a reason that people running servers at that level (from that time) are called BOFH.
- pyre 14y ago
  > (from that time) Are you trying to imply that 'mail servers' are some sort of ancient devices whose era has come and gone?
  - lmm 14y ago
    The days when every company maintained its own mail server are gone (and on the whole we're better off).
    - pyre 14y ago
      As we converge on a handful of major email providers, are we really much better off? Would you be singing the same song of Hotmail a decade ago, or is it just because Google seems to be the Monopoly with a Heart of Gold?
      - lmm 14y ago
        If hotmail gave better service than your typical bigcorp's email servers (which is subjective) I'd be saying the same thing. I'm not too worried about a monopoly on email hosting, just because there's very little lock-in; it's trivial to set up as a new email hosting company, and almost as trivial for companies to migrate.

I've been getting increasingly fed up with gmail, but not quite to the point of making me set up exim. Does anybody know of a mail server I can throw on ec2 and forget about?

niggler 14y ago

I dont think this is a good idea -- if ec2 goes down (as it has in the past) you risk losing email

rabidsnail 14y ago
I risk new messages getting bounced, but all of my email is backed up on my computer. And I'd archive everything to s3 (which has never lost data to my knowledge) in case both my ec2 instance and my laptop disappeared.
notatoad 14y ago
SMTP doesn't just drop messages if the destination server is unavailable. It'll either get held back at an intermediary server until your server comes up again, or else it will be bounced back to the sender.
- ams6110 14y ago
  SMTP does sometimes just drop messages, it's not a protocol that guarantees delivery
  - ars 14y ago
    That's not true. It should either send the email to the recipient or return it to sender. But it should never just drop the message (except for bounces which can be dropped since there is nowhere to send them if delivery fails).
    - danielweber 14y ago
      I think you and the parent are using different meanings of "guarantee." Yes, everything in the protocol leads to the fact that nothing should drop an email unless it has passed responsibility of it to another server which has accepted the message. In practice, lots of times things don't work.
      - ams6110 14y ago
        Yes, one misconfigured server between source and destination can "eat" email and you'll never be the wiser. Doesn't happen often, but it can and the protocol does not detect it.
  - overbroad 14y ago
    An SMTP daemon will try to send the message a certain number of times, at a certain interval, then, eventually, it will stop ("bounce"). You can configure these settings if you run your own SMTP service.
jrockway 14y ago
There's a reason why a domain can have multiple mail exchanger records.
icebraining 14y ago
You can set up a different mail server with a lower priority. I run my own server on a VPS, but have Google Apps' SMTP server as backup for those cases, and it's been working fine for months.
- overbroad 14y ago
  Assuming your ISP is not blocking port 25 and your internet address is not on some blacklist you can send mail directly from your machine. No need to use intermediary SMTP servers. Is it possible that someone people might like to use their native SMTP capability for low volume noncommercial email? Does every person who sends email have some overwhelming urge to send spam? Such that we must place pseudo control over sending email, any email whether commercial or noncommercial, in the hands of "email providers"? Good on you for running your own service.
  - icebraining 14y ago
    My ISP doesn't block port 25, but since my IP address is technically dynamic, it's on Spamhaus' Policy Black List. That said, my ISP offers SMTP servers for proxying outgoing messages, so I used that for a while. I switched to a VPS because my home server died.
    - overbroad 14y ago
      Gotta love that Spamhaus logic. Spammers use cheap dynamic IP's therefore anyone with a cheap dynamic IP that sends an email is a spammer. Is it cheaper for you to get a static IP from a VPS than from your ISP?
      - DanBC 14y ago
        "Spammers use cheap dynamic IP's therefore anyone with a cheap dynamic IP that sends an email is a spammer." That's not what they're saying. "Very many spam emails come from people running an email server on a dynamic IP. Some companies were happy to host spam sending companies, and would put them in dynamic ranges so they could continue to get money from those spam sending companies and keep changing the IP address. The ratio of good email servers to bad email servers on dynamic IPs is so poor that blocking all dynamic IPs is, unfortunately, the only reasonably solution". You can be on a dynamic IP and send email. Just don't send that email from a server on a dynamic IP.

sbierwagen 14y ago

Many blacklists include all the EC2 addresses: for obvious reasons, they get used to send spam a lot.

kylemaxwell 14y ago
But if you're doing it legitimately, and not bulk emailing, EC2 has proper SMTP forwarders you can use. And if you ARE bulk emailing, they have a service (plus you're not using Gmail for that anyway).
overbroad 14y ago
Do you think that is a smart idea? To black list entire netblocks? I mean, can we assume that every person using EC2 for email is sending spam? It would seem to degrade the usefulness of EC2 for anyone wanting to run their own mailserver.
- doesnt_know 14y ago
  It doesn't really matter if it's "a smart idea", it already happens and you have no control over it. A simple search for setting up your own mail-server is just a search for people who have done that saying "don't ever setup a personal mail server because it's guaranteed to be blacklisted". Spam has lead email to basically become this closed ecosystem. If you don't use one of the already established major email providers, ISP's or domain name registrars the reliability of email hits the floor.
  - overbroad 14y ago
    While I understand your sentiment, I respectfully disagree that it does not matter if it's a smart idea. Because if it is not a smart idea then that means we can do better. One of the projects I'm working on solves the "closed ecosystem" problem. The use of the term "closed ecosystem" is ironic because it seems to me that the "open" nature of email receiving (not sending) is what leads to the spam problem. In other words, I do not see the problem as the fact that people can send mass quantities of junk email. I see the problem as the fact that daemons accept and deliver mail from anyone. (And then resort to blacklisting.) What if the system was "closed" by default and instead a sender would contact the receiving SMTP daemon directly (no internediary) and would first need either a means of authentication (i.e. he has been pre-approved) or a way to have his sending address revieved and then receive permission to send. Right now you can see someting like this within a domain. For example, one gmail user might be able to send to another gmail user, directly, as they are both able to authenticate. They both have accounts (private accounts, not some RBL, DKIM or other scheme managed by an interloper) and these accounts can be checked. But if one gmail user wants to send to some non-gmail address, the non-gmail recipient has no knowledge of the sender in the form of an account against which he can authenticate. There's no privity between sender and receiver. Instead third party schemes are used. Such as blocklists for sending. Consider the idea of running a mailserver than only accepts mail from a predetermined set of sending addresses. What would be the chances of receiving junk mail?

DanBC 14y ago

The answer to "Gmail drops some wanted messages into the spam folder" is definitely not "set up exim" nor "set up [insert email server here]". There's a reason that people running servers at that level (from that time) are called BOFH.

pyre 14y ago
> (from that time) Are you trying to imply that 'mail servers' are some sort of ancient devices whose era has come and gone?
- lmm 14y ago
  The days when every company maintained its own mail server are gone (and on the whole we're better off).
  - pyre 14y ago
    As we converge on a handful of major email providers, are we really much better off? Would you be singing the same song of Hotmail a decade ago, or is it just because Google seems to be the Monopoly with a Heart of Gold?
    - lmm 14y ago
      If hotmail gave better service than your typical bigcorp's email servers (which is subjective) I'd be saying the same thing. I'm not too worried about a monopoly on email hosting, just because there's very little lock-in; it's trivial to set up as a new email hosting company, and almost as trivial for companies to migrate.