Want to host email at home, what are the best ways to tunnel traffic to my home? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NGL_ItsGood · 2023-11-11 17:46 I appreciate everyones opinion, and I'm aware of the pro's con's of self hosting email, regardless of platform. With that being said, I had a question about hosting email from home hardware but tunneling traffic from an external site. So I want to host my own email, i've done before and found it very fun and useful. I hosted it on digital ocean, but never went too far with it, just propped up a server, sent a few emails, and shut it down I'd like to host it at home so I can make use of existing hardware. What are my options for tunneling traffic so I don't have to expose my home IP or home network directly to the internet? and also obviously bypass the issue of most isp's blocking email. Also, are there any other services that I should consider to help route my email? I've heard of services such as external mail relays that help improve deliverability and reduce the chance of email being marked as spam or blocked. I genuinely find email admin to be very interesting, and think self hosting would be a great way to keep advancing my skills and learn more about security, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tech2but1 · 2023-11-11 17:59 The main 2 specific issues with selfhosting email IMO is the sender just dropping email and not retrying if your host is down and deliverability/reputation. You can get over both of these issues by just using an external service to relay incoming and outgoing email. Any basic cheap webhost will do an email only service, just use their SMTP as a relay for outgoing and collect all the mail in a default catch all mailbox to be collected by your server via POP. This is what I've done in the past to simply have my email on my own server. I don't see the point in trying to actually get my own server directly online. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dotinho · 2023-11-11 18:00 Following. But I never see simple answers about that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NGL_ItsGood · 2023-11-11 18:22 >This is what I've done in the past to simply have my email on my own server. I don't see the point in trying to actually get my own server directly online. Yeah that's exactly what I want. You have any particular web hosting service you recommend or tutorials that you used? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HoustonBOFH · 2023-11-11 18:40 MXroute They even have a lifetime service. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RVA_dude88 · 2023-11-11 18:43 Well most say not to do it ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tech2but1 · 2023-11-11 18:43 Not specifically, I'm in the UK so I don't think any of my hosts will be relevant (plus I am a reseller, don't really use individual webhosts myself so am a bit out of touch there anyway). As for tutorials, just Google! Main thing is picking something that can do fetch via POP and send via SMTP. The more difficult part is usually the internal mail handling rules/transport tbh. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NGL_ItsGood · 2023-11-11 18:44 Cool, ty! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheRyGuy994 · 2023-11-11 18:45 2nd. this $130 for life? if you use it for 1 year. \~11/month... 2 years... \~5.5ish a month... 3 years... \~3.6ish.... you get the point... Also don't forget about DMARC, DKIM, SPF, super easy to set up with MX! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- codebreaker101 · 2023-11-11 19:15 I use a VPS with good IP with VyOS router installed with a wireguard VPN that my local install of VyOS connects to. Then I route all trafic from local email server through it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eldred2 · 2023-11-11 20:56 I use a spam blocking service, to relay email. My MX records are their servers, and only they have my ip address. I then whitelist their servers on my sendmail host. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NGL_ItsGood · 2023-11-11 20:57 Oh nice which service is that? I use mimecast at work, not sure how pricey they are for a small self hosted option. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eldred2 · 2023-11-11 21:02 junkemailfilter.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NGL_ItsGood · 2023-11-11 21:03 Thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Majestic_AssBiscuits · 2023-11-11 21:17 I'm actually thinking about the same thing. I have a VPS I set up a couple of years ago and have been running docker-mailserver on ever since. I have a good rep on the IP, and I'm deliverable, and about the only thing that keeps me from leaning into it more is the lack of storage on this cheap little RackNerd VPS. Once I'm done building my new home server, I intend to move the service onto my home network and just proxy mail through the old VPS using NGINX. That way I can keep my IP and associated reputation. I've already done something like that with a web service before and it worked pretty well, at least at the scale that I mess around at. [https://docs.nginx.com/nginx/admin-guide/mail-proxy/mail- proxy/](https://docs.nginx.com/nginx/admin-guide/mail-proxy/mail- proxy/) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- juantam0d · 2023-11-11 21:56 Here we go again… ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NGL_ItsGood · 2023-11-11 21:59 No u ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HejdaaNils · 2023-11-11 23:18 Same. I've had sendmail and postfix servers at home ages ago. Stopped using sendmail when my accesslist was blocking most Korea from mailing my users and it just got overly complicated. Postfix was easier but a lot has changed in the past 15 years. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Icy_Possession_777 · 2023-11-11 23:55 So you won't get your mail delivered. It's not 1998. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NGL_ItsGood · 2023-11-12 00:10 Why wouldn't proper DNS and a reliable relay work? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Leading-Method-7213 · 2023-11-12 01:11 I use Dynu as a forwarding service. My ISP blocks port 25 so that is my workaround. I use mail cow, it has its own spam filtering. Been doing if for about 7 months… so really a newbie. I only do it for my family, 7 people with about 80 aliases. Everywhere I go gets their own email for spam- for example: costco@domain.com or homedepot@domain.com… it is kinda fun to see who is selling my email. [dynu store and forward](https://www.dynu.com/en- US/Email/StoreForward) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ItsAFineWorld · 2023-11-12 02:14 So dynu would just be for forwarding emails to your server, but what do you use for outgoing mail? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Leading-Method-7213 · 2023-11-12 02:16 Sorry you are right. I forgot I also subscribe to their outbound smtp. [Dynu outbound](https://www.dynu.com/en-US/Email/Outbound-SMTP-Relay) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ItsAFineWorld · 2023-11-12 02:17 awesome, thank you! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AviationAtom · 2023-11-12 02:41 They're saying if you fail to use a relay that has good IP reputation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- haroldp · 2023-11-12 02:43 > dropping email and not retrying if your host is down Not saying no one would ever do this, but mail exchangers SHOULD retry soft failures per the RFCs. I use greylisting as an anti-spam measure and it relies on legit mail servers retrying, and the failure rate is... I have noticed one or two in 2+ decades of mail hosting. Queuing and retrying temporary failures for a few days is normal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MERKR1 · 2023-11-12 03:49 Simplelogin or AnonAddy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Error-InvalidName · 2023-11-12 05:08 Agreed, working for a mail server software company it is actually against RFC to not retry for a period of time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- oscarfinn_pinguin3 · 2023-11-12 06:43 What you probably want is an SMTP Relay on the VPS that forwards incoming mail to the server at home. Because if you have a power outage and on the sender's Side the SMTP Server is not configured correctly, you will loose EMails ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Alfagun74 · 2023-11-12 07:10 Just don't. It's not worth it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mankycrack · 2023-11-12 07:40 Don't do it, just don't do it. Self hosting email remains the most painful of all self hosting experience for most people here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Icy_Possession_777 · 2023-11-12 15:23 You need to be in a static IP pool that hasn't been run through the wringer at a minimum. If it's a dynamic consumer ISP pool, don't bother. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Annual-Advisor-7916 · 2023-11-12 15:35 If your server is down, how often do they retry to deliver the mail to you? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eldred2 · 2023-11-12 17:43 They act as a store and forward relay. I've had my server go down for over 24 hours with no lost email. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Annual-Advisor-7916 · 2023-11-12 17:46 Cool! That sounds like an awesome solution, I'll look into them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NoNameJustASymbol · 2023-11-12 22:32 Hosting yourself doesn't mean it has to be at your home, not even part of it. Don't add unnecessary complexity. Use an external setup only. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Low-Chapter5294 · 2023-11-13 12:57 Senders retry mail delivery. It's remarkably resilient.