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One of my neighbors asked me if I had ever set up a home email server as he was interested in doing so for his email. I had never given it much thought but I know it’s possible so after doing a little research I came up with Wamp and Squirrel to use to set up a home email server.

I am just looking for some input from others as I may just do this for fun, and to say that I’ve done it. Now before you get carried away, I am really not wanting to purchase Exchange as I really don’t want to invest this kind of money into this … future project.

What are your recommendations? Oh, and yes, before anyone mentions it, I realize that I need to have a static IP or at least a dynamic dns.

14 Spice ups
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If it were me, I would just by a NAS with this ability. I know Synology DSM supports a basic email server that’s really easy to setup and manage. After that all you have to do is purchase a domain, do some port forwarding and DNS setup on your end and off to the races.

CentOS should also have some packages for this as well:

2 Spice ups
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Take a look at Alt-N’s MDaemon.

Windows based email server product and will run on an exiting desktop PC running Windows 7 or above if needed for a small environment like home.

3 Spice ups
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A lot of residential ISPs will shut down email servers, so you might want to check your TOS.

11 Spice ups
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A lot also block or reroute port 25 into their own servers.

I wouldn’t run my own email server, I’d just host it in the cloud, cheaper, easier, better up time, etc, etc.

1 Spice up
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Well, CentOS has Exim, sendmail and postfix. Exim is one of the leaders for ISP based mail systems.

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Also if he has a residential account your ISP might bitch about port 25 being used.

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+1 for MDaemon, although its not free, it sets up in 10-15 minutes. As others have mentioned, ISPs will block port 25 if the connection is a residential one, so they’ll need to have a business one.

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Honestly, just don’t unless it’s for learning and you have zero expectation of being able to reliably send and receive email.

  • Odds are it’s against your ISPs TOS
  • Odds are they block inbound port 25
  • Odds are they block outbound port 25

And even if by some miracle none of the above are true you’ll be on a ton of RBLs simply through having a residential IP address so almost none of your mail will get through.

The world does not expect to receive legitimate email from a random residential Rogers DSL IP address in Sioux City or wherever.

If they want to try it maybe get a cheap VPS somewhere.

5 Spice ups
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While technically possible and an uncomplicated service, trouble can come with handling anti-virus, anti-spam, RBLs, etc. Fun for an experiment, but wouldn’t want to handle it long term. Considering the popularity of email hosting, many companies don’t want to handle it either.

1 Spice up
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I have been running Exchange from home for years with very little hiccups. I use No-IP for the DNS forwarding and all of my mail is routed inbound and outbound through a spam filter. That being said, if I were starting now I would just get hosted and will probably switch to that anyway at some point. I did it from home because hosting was very expensive then and I wanted to have an Exchange box I could play with a little.

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http://www.zarafa.com/content/editions

Zarafa community edition would be my recommendation.

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Host it.

Seriously.

I pay $8/month for my Exchange mailboxes (each of which has several email addresses attached to it). That’s YEARS [of] service for the cost the hardware alone.

Edit: I’d blame autocorrect, but that was all me.

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OK… Do tell. Where do you get Exchange hosted for $8 annually??

Roy

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I didn’t say $8/year. I said $8/month.

And I was trying to imply that, at that rate, one can get years of hosted email service for what one would pay for even a low-end desktop to use as a mail “server”.

Point being? Hosting one’s own email - especially if the volume is low enough to even consider it on a consumer connection - is flatly not cost-effective.

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@Bryce: I too was wondering about the $8/year myself!

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Zimbra community version is free and gives a lot of capability. More than you need, probably, at the home level.

But I agree with the above - home email is more trouble than it is worth.

Besides, once you get it up and running and start using it, you will not only have yet one more email address to check the inbox of, but you will also have others knowing your new email address and having to redirect them once you decide this project is too much of a pain to continue.

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You do mention doing it for fun, so enjoy yourself. Fun never had to be practical from what I remember of it :wink: