1

I’m thinking about hosting my own email. I’ve been reading a few articles, but would like answers from ‘real’ people who have successfully hosted their own. Or quite possibly suggestions. This would be personal, not business.

9 Spice ups
2

Why? I have my own domain and use the hosting package that comes with that along with an IMAP client.

3 Spice ups
(donges) 3

First, your ISP may require you to use their smarthost if they even allow smtp traffic from a home server in the first place.

Long ago I hosted my own which was on an openSuSE box (version 8.1, I think, at the time) and ran a combination of sendmail, spamassassin, dovecot and clamav with a perl-based product called MailScanner ( http://www.mailscanner.info ) to pull it all together. Quite flexible and workable and the MailScanner group was fantastic with community support.

Nowadays, though, it just isn’t worth it and I host my own domain’s email, along with the small website and domain registry, right on godaddy’s servers.

2 Spice ups
4

Yeah I am hoping that wont be a problem with my isp (probably will).

5

Chances are that your ISP has port 25 blocked and you will have to relay through them, which shouldn’t be an issue. I had this type of setup when I was testing a solution for my company from my house. I am running the FOSS version of Zimbra Collaboration Server and couldn’t be happier! It is easy to install and configure and has a whole slew of features… may be overkill for home use, though…

1 Spice up
6

Possibly, a workaround for that would be to host at Amazon or somewhere similar.

1 Spice up
7

In addition to the requirements that your ISP may have set, you would need the proper DNS records for your domain:

  • An MX record that tells other servers where to send mail for your domain. It maps a domain name to a host name.
  • An A record that maps a host name to an IP address
  • A PTR record that maps an IP address to a reverse-DNS in.addr.arpa name, which allows other servers to perform a reverse-DNS lookup on mail from your domain

You would also need:

  • Mail server software. Our software, MDaemon , is geared toward small-to-medium businesses & was rated #2 by the Spiceworks community.

  • Adequate hardware to support mail server software

  • A dedicated internet connection with a static IP address

4 Spice ups
8

Hey thanks guys, these are really great answers… and defiantly point me in some directions I need to go!

(Ryan Goode) 9

If it’s for personal knowledge/experience, you could always get a cheap VPS to monkey with. That way you don’t have to worry about getting a static IP or SMTP relay.

3 Spice ups
10

Well with the way it seems to be turning out… I might just make it a dummy/test… I originally wanted to host my own because there isn’t any email services that are secure. Even if they’re encrypted, if the government wants the info from the email provider, they either have to give it up or dissolve.

11

and that is no different with a VPS.

If you are dealing with highly secure emails then you need to look at PGP, TLS or using something other than email for message transfer.

12

Why host? Rackspace offers email hosting for Spiceheads at $1/mailbox. Can’t beat that.

2 Spice ups
13

I am doing the same thing for my personnal, I use zimbra community edition. I don’t have any restraint from my isp so that made it easier for me.
Also It work from a white list, I would be worried about spam trafic overloading my internet at home if i was to allow anyone to send me email.

14

For my personal domain, I use Office 365. I started out on their $4 per month plan. The last thing I want to do is screw around with my personal email; I just want it to work.

2 Spice ups
15

I’ve run engineering for an email hoster. But now I just use Rackspace for my home email. If you are doing it to learn about email hosting, great. Otherwise, a waste of effort.

16

Oh, you want to host out of your house? No, that won’t work unless you have a commercial line. You need a static IP and PTR record or you need to pay for a Smarthost at which point… why bother, just get Rackspace for cheaper.

1 Spice up
17

  1. Email is insecure by nature. Email is in plain text across the line, so the NSA has your data no matter what.

  2. You said it… none are secure. But trust me, Microsoft, Rackspace and Google are better at securing it than you are. Host your own and you can assume lower security than they provide. It’s just the nature of the beast. They have dedicated security teams, you do not.

  3. If the government wants your email, they will take your server, the rack, your desktop, even your house and if you stand in the way, they will take you too. Unless you are outside of the US, this isn’t a reasonable precaution.

5 Spice ups
18

Im currently hosting my own email…honestly it can be a pita when something goes wrong. Im actually looking to move it to a company that will deal with it rather than myself.

Im paying about 40 dollars a yr just on an SMTP forwarder thru DynDNS and for my domain name but the big cost is the server. Running 24/7/365 plus an AC in the summer is costing me about $200 a yr. The only reason why i tolerate it right now is that i use the server for other things to test and learn software and procedures that i use for work.

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ArsTechnica just finished a four-part series on hosting your own email:

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I’m with Rackspace and it had Exchange mobility for hosted email and my users use Thunderbird

It’s easy to use up to 25 gb per mail box and about .10 a box if non reseller

@Rackspace_Technology