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I am thinking of setting up my own email server for home. Has anyone done this and can share their design and pro’s and cons. I know that the Raspberry Pi can be used as a server, but was curious of what else has been used with what degree of success.

5 Spice ups
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I did at one time, I used hMailServer, another standalone, and Exchange. I wouldn’t use a Pi because once SPAM starts hitting it your CPU will begin spiking high. You will need a smarthost to relay your outbound through because nearly every ISP blocks it, and even when they don’t, recipient mail filters will block you because you’re sending from a residential IP address.

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I’m using Zimbra running on a CentOS virtual machine (I’ve got a white box VMware host). Since sending email from a dynamic IP address range can cause deliverability problems, I’m using OpenVPN to a little $5/month VM at a hosting provider. That gives me a static IP in a real datacenter to send and receive email. Overall, I’m pretty happy with it.

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Of course if you really want to run it from a Pi (and you’re using a 64 GB or larger storage card) you can just go with Postfix installed on whatever distro you’re using… Install Webmin and Postfix, and configuration is a breeze. But I seriously think you should get a web-based SPAM product to filter everything before it hits your server. Also, don’t forget to lock whatever down to your local LAN only so that you don’t turn into a SPAM zombie relay machine.

If you use a 32 GB storage card, you will need to work on pruning the logs and archived mail. Otherwise, you’ll run out of space on the card and then your system will lock up.

If it’s just something you want to tinker with to learn more about SMTP, how about just setting up a VM at home where you can control the CPU, RAM and storage?

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I used to, ran Small Business Server 2003 and utilized Exchange. Worked fine for the couple domain names I had, did that for quite a while. Years ago I opted for cloud based as I was getting tired of running that in my house. Ran the free version of Google Apps for a while, eventually moved over to Outlook.com, there was a time when Microsoft was letting you use Outlook.com for your own domain name for free. They stopped doing that and anyone grandfathered in can still use it, which I am doing to this day.

I think if I were starting from scratch and doing this, I would go with ZoHo, Secure Business Email Hosting for your Organization | Zoho Mail , they have a free version good for up to 5 accounts I think.

I switched to cloud based because I was getting tired of maintaining Exchange. And if the internet went out, which did quite often (looking at you Comcast), then friends and family had their emails bounced back.

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I use both MDaemon and Exchange. What will you use this for? Lab/learning, its the only reason that I would even consider a home based email server.

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Thanks for using MDaemon @AceOfSPades!!

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Gave up on this a long time ago. Constantly had to support it and install security patches and the cost of running the whole system from energy to hardware made it worse. Then there is the backup issue you will face.

Moved my domains to Office 365 and use the exchange plans that fit for your needs in there. You can start with $4 per user per month - what is sufficient for most cases and works better then anything else and on top I don’t have to stress about it at all when it comes to administration, security and backup.

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Precisely why I moved away from hosting a mail server. It became too much of a burden. Went cloud based and never looked back.

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In my home office i use Kerio Connect which i also resell for clients which has become harder to justify these days because O365 Exchange has become so low. i will be retiring in 4-5 years so will be asking the same question myself and looking at the numbers when that day comes.

Oh and compared to Exchange Kerio Connect is a dream to support because it just runs.