Do you run your own mail server?

[FelixDeCat]

I remember around 1999 or 2000 I was experimenting with a program that allowed you to setup a temporary email sever but for the life of me I dont remember anything about it other than it worked. Port 25 works on my ISP. :ninja:

Does anyone else run a mail server with no domain?

 

[MichaelD]

Please tell me you're not getting into the SPAM business and thinking about running an open relay.

 

[sourceninja]

It's just not worth it.

 

[skyking]

It's just not worth it.

this. I did it back in the day and had sendmail and spamassassin going. Total PITA to keep up with the spammers.

 

[Ernie99]

Smarter Mail is free for small installations, but if you don't own the domain from which you will be sending email your IP will be blacklisted rather quickly. Why even attempt this?

 

[gorcorps]

Why bother? Free email from many places, and many hosts include X number of email addresses for your own domain.

 

[child of wonder]

this. I did it back in the day and had sendmail and spamassassin going. Total PITA to keep up with the spammers.

Double this.

For a while I had a Postfix server running for my own personal domain and I got sick of having to troubleshoot and maintain it, not to mention staying on top of all the latest anti-spam techniques.

 

[foghorn67]

You can't even run Twitter.

 

[Gooberlx2]

I used to run a Horde webmail server back in the early 00s. Hideous. Still is. I've long since switch to using gmail and then google apps for my domain.

 

[AFurryReptile]

I used hmailserver for about a week. It worked.

Just use Google Apps; it's free. Of course, if you don't want to use a domain I don't think it'll work.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Please tell me you're not getting into the SPAM business and thinking about running an open relay.

:|

I hate spam. I dont think my ISP would appreciate that and would probably kick people off for doing that.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Smarter Mail is free for small installations, but if you don't own the domain from which you will be sending email your IP will be blacklisted rather quickly. Why even attempt this?

When you try to sign up for certain things and they know you are using a disposable email they will ban the account - like that worthless Twitter garbage.

Why bother? Free email from many places, and many hosts include X number of email addresses for your own domain.

I want to do it on my own.

I used hmailserver for about a week. It worked.

Just use Google Apps; it's free. Of course, if you don't want to use a domain I don't think it'll work.

No domain, just an IP.

 

[skyking]

might as well email yourself then. Without reverse DNS and a clean domain, most servers will not take your mail.
What you can do is build a local cacheing server and run through your ISP for outbound.
This will give you the experience of setting it up without the nightmares.

 

[sourceninja]

When you try to sign up for certain things and they know you are using a disposable email they will ban the account - like that worthless Twitter garbage.



I want to do it on my own.



No domain, just an IP.

Well, buy a domain name, they are less than 10 bucks.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Well, buy a domain name, they are less than 10 bucks.

no u :biggrin:

 

[cronos]

I hosted my own mail server from 1999-2003. It was messy but it was fun as I wanted to learn about this.

Then I moved my mail server to a professional webhost for a while, until I discovered Google Apps and stopped worrying about all that stuff

 

[Red Squirrel]

I run my own mail server, but it's a dedicated server hosted in a data center. I don't have a good enough connection to host at home, otherwise I would.

I have my own domains that I used with hosting at some point then just moved to my own server. I use postfix for receiving and dovecot for retrieving.

I've thought of actually offering web services like hosting/email but it's a conflict of interest with the company I work for.

 

[ViviTheMage]

so much work ...!

 

[Krazy4Real]

It's not worth the headache.

 

[sourceninja]

I ran the mail server where I worked for years, it was a never ending headache of spam, getting blocked as spam, and trying to keep storage costs under control.

Now we use google, it is a dream.

 

[SunnyD]

Problem with running your own mail server is that odds are you're on a common "public DHCP assigned IP address" (ie: An IP assigned by pretty much any major ISP), and as such about 95% of YOUR outgoing emails will get bounced because of it.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah running it at home would be very hard. If it's a server in a data center with a dedicated IP, it's a bit easier. Though when you first get the server if the previous owner of that IP got listed then getting it unlisted from RBLs is like pulling teeth.

Some RBLs actually block ALL ISP/DHCP assigned IPs as their philosophy is no official mail server should be running off those anyway. Those RBLs are probably rather effective too as lot of spam comes from bots that are on consumer internet DHCP ranges.

 

[cubby1223]

Not only keeping up with all the spam blocking

It's also the time spent keeping your own server properly maintained to avoid being blacklisted by other servers.

 

[yinan]

Yes. Why would I want to trust another company to keep my data safe and secure. And to also not read every message I send/receive like I am sure Google/Yahoo/Hotmail all do.

 

[sourceninja]

Yes. Why would I want to trust another company to keep my data safe and secure. And to also not read every message I send/receive like I am sure Google/Yahoo/Hotmail all do.

If you really don't want people reading your email, you better be encrypting it end to end, especially because most people are using gmail/yahoo to host their mail.