Re: SMTP servers

[Thomas Anderson <thomas.anderson@little-beak.com>]

I also belong to the group of long time mailserver owners. I started it 
way back at Debian 8, and upgraded along the way. The biggest time 
requirement was at the beginning, setting up every thing properly. Since 
then, I have had almost no problems at all, that couldn't be solved 
reasonably quickly.

All that said, I also would concur with the voices that say, it might 
not be worth it. The initial hassle of getting everything working 
properly--like contacting others to unblock my ip, setting up fail2ban 
(absolutely necessity!), amongst other things. Originally, it was mostly 
to "see if I could do it." Then, over time, I started giving out 
accounts to family members and friends. Also, it was nice to have 
unlimited space, accounts, as I ever wanted. But, now, I am responsible 
for all these people's emails, which is more weight than I would want, 
because for me, email isn't so day-to-day requirement. But, others live 
by email =) Like, I could shut down my server today, and it really 
wouldn't affect me too much at all, however all the rest would be 
devastated. hehe So, I am "baked in" now. I have to keep it going.

I just keep it running...

On 02/01/2025 23:31, Michael Stone wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 02, 2025 at 06:28:47PM +0800, jeremy ardley wrote:
> > I have been running my own inbound and outbound mail servers for over 
> > 30 years using ISP connections. The only time I ran into trouble was 
> > with gmail recently and only because of mismatched SPF records for a 
> > domain I host.
>
> You're lucky, and your ISP is IMO atypical. Most ISP dialup 
> (consumer/dynamic) IP ranges are identified and blocked by various 
> anti-spam filters. Many ISPs also block outbound SMTP. My ISP does 
> both, and provides (provided? I haven't tried it a decade) an outbound 
> SMTP server which rewrote the Date: header (because why not), making 
> it impossible to use DKIM at all. Static IPs can usually be 
> "unlocked", but it's another hoop to jump through and static IPs often 
> have a significant cost premium over dynamic IPs. Even if your ISP 
> lets you use your IP for outbound SMTP, if it was previously used by a 
> spammer you can forget it. For anyone just starting out I absolutely 
> agree that running a mail server isn't worth the effort. For those of 
> us who have been running one for decades, it at least provides a nice 
> excuse to periodically complain about what the internet has become.