mail server question

[galt11]

I didnt want to post this under the PC section as I am not sure I would go that direction. I am thinking of setting up a mail server for my family. My ISP has decided to let Yahoo handle all email and I dont want to deal with that headache. My current thinking is to use an older computer I have laying around and load Ubuntu server. Again, this would strictly be for email for about 8-10 accounts. The two mail questions I have right now are:

1) By going to my own mail server, would I have a new @ address ie. me @me.com. The bold, underlined part being different from my current ISP provided account.

2) Does anyone have any additional information or suggestions, having been down this path before.

Thanks

Adam

[The_Vigilante]

You might check out this link: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MailServer

[stiles]

I don't even know where to start. I would strongly advise against setting up your own email server on a dynamic IP (I've never dealt with dynamic dns on an email server but it will only complicate things), or even a static IP, for other peoples emails. Well I guess it would be OK if you're looking for a non paying part time job.

The link about setting up the MTA, MDA, etc... is only part of the equation that you will be dealing with. You also have to get your CNAME and MX records right (DNS, and DNS email record), and I do mean right, not just working, other wise you'll be black listed. Your MTA can't be an open relay, or you will be black listed, so learn smtp-auth (preferred and even better with TLS encryption), or pop-before-smtp (it's a hack but it will work). There are two other add ons to tie down your domain, one is a DNS encryption, the other is a domain tie down of some sort, it's been a long time since I've done this stuff so I don't remember off the cuff, but depending on the black list, not getting these done right will get you black listed.

So the question arises what does it mean to be black listed in this context. Well various blacklist such as spamhaus crawl the various records of email domains and any malformed or missing records get that domain blacklisted, and any other domain that subscribes to said blacklist will not receive email from your domain. Here is the nasty part of this fact, you may not even know about this till someone says, why can I email so and so but not somebody else, I sent them both an email but only received my email. Now it's all on you, you have to figure out what is wrong, fix it, figured out which black list(s) your on and then contact the black list(s) and get them to review your domain and then your golden. Well maybe. You may have to persist, call, even hint your a he-man three gun shooter with an itchy trigger finger! It just depends on how responsive the admin(s) are on said black list. Most are responsive but things do fall through the cracks, they deal with a lot of traffic of this nature.

Here is the bottom line, when you are running a live MTA on the internet you are joining a community of people who administrate email servers and you have to play by their rules or you get black listed (thanks spammers! it wasn't all ways like this). Dealing with Yahoo email is a cake walk compared to what road you are looking to embark on.

Sorry for the negativity of this post, but I wanted to give you a honest view of what you will face. I've turned down piece meal work for email cause it becomes an on going commitment and it is not a set it up and forget about it type of a thing.

Now to your questions:

1: Yes you will need to register a domain such as whatever.(com)(net)(org)(etc...), after you set up everything you can add as many users as you want so they have an email address such as user1@whatever.com

2: Run away! it's a massive pain in the ass unless your getting paid to administrate email.

[blind bat]

Pretty much what Stiles said.

There is a server in my closet (Ubuntu 10.04 (soon to be 12.04) Server LTS) doing exactly what you want to do plus a web server and a few other things.

If you are a geek who has a working knowledge of Linux and enjoy tinkering and hacking (in the MIT sense of the word not the Hollywood version). I can try to help you out if you gey stuck.

Things to consider:

- You generally need a "business" connection with a decent amount (1mbit+) up side bandwidth and at east one static IP. You can work around the static IP.

You can get around the static IP requirement but it may cost a couple bucks to a dynamic IP service (or you can use my server if you'd like).

You also need to make sure you ISP isn't blocking in bound port 25, 110, 143, 943, 995. If you want web mail toss 80 and 443 to that list. If you want remote SSH port 22 is nice.

You will want a domain registar who will let you easily manage DNS. I use Gandi.net. They act as my secondary DNS server (they may even manage full static DNS for free) and the give you a free SSL cert for registering/renewing your domain!

- Back in the day email was analogous to the snail mail system: anyone could mail a letter from anywhere and the to/from addresses could be considered almost arbitrary. With the current state of SPAM there are many (somewhat undocumented) mechanisms that need to be implemented to make sure your email will get through:

-- IP outside a known residential ISP block

-- Reverse DNS that matches your domain's MX record (it can be intresting trying to find your ISP's DNS guy)

-- DNS based server identification: DomainKeys/DKIM and SPF

-- Most of the major email services (GMail, Yahoo, MS) have a service to register and whitelist your domain and mail server. You generally need the above and an email address to accept complaint emails.

From an end user perspective you will want SPAM and virus filtering otherwise you'll end up missing real emails in the haystack of Spam. I recommend Spamassassin, ClamAV and Amavis (all mentioed in the link above).

On my server I run:

Postfix - Email Server

Bind - DNS

Apache 2 - web server

Dovecot - Imap (waaaaaay faster than courier)

Maildir - Email Storage

Procmail - end user mail filtering / forwarding

Spamassassin - spam filtering

ClamAV / ClamD -Virus Scanning

Milter + Amavis / processing email through virus, spam, dkim, spf programs

Squirrel Mail + RoundCube - Web Mail (squirrel is pretty bare bones but I've been using it forever)

I'm sure I'm forgetting something. I'll look on the server and update the post if I missed something big.

You might want to consider a using a virtual hosting company like Host Gator. They'll basically handle all of the above for you and give you a lot more freedom than a free email provider for a nominal fee. Stay the hell away from GoDaddy.

[caspian guy]

Run screaming into the night rather than deal with Sendmail... If you just want your own domain for your email. Register a domain with a provider who will forward your mail to your gmail account (i use active-domain.com but there are many others). Gmail has the capability to send mail out from a user at your domain rather than your gmail address. That's the easiest way I know to accomplish that.

Edited November 8, 2012 by caspian guy

[NewRacer]

I will probably be in the minority here, but have you considered Exchange Online? $4 per user per month.

[SemperWiFi]

I'm not going to bore you with what I do for a living but I will say this, it's given me enough experience to concer with the others in this thread warning against it. My best suggestion is to first of all go grab your own domain. It can be whateverisavaiable.com.net.etc.... Then you have options. You can choose to host it somewhere (NOT GODADDY) and use their mail servers. Or you can go with the hosted Exchange solution as previeously mentioned. I promise you do not want to try doing this at home... if it were that super easy EVERYONE would do it.

Having your own domain means you'll never need to change email address again. And, to help with this, I suggest having multiple email addresses. One for personal use only, one for doctors and utlities and etc, and one for forums and etc. You can find other uses for additional emails as well. But this will help you from getting spam and such to personal 'I want to keep this address forever' email addresses.

[Classic_jon]

I managed E-mail servers for a small ISP, webhost service, and for several "corporations"....and for home use...unless you are an uber-mailserver-geek... don't do it.

As others have said, You need a static IP and that will cost extra, some ISPS charge you a "business rate" to have a static IP and a server....which can get into the 300.00+ range per month pretty quickly.... not to mention dealing with open relays, exploits, and spam alone is pretty much a full time job to do it right. Also, many ISP's will block the mail ports for anything but their servers. AT&T (formerly SBC) is well known for this.

Some ISP's will let you purchase and use your own domain name for mail but you will have to pay for that privilege. Unless you just really *need* to have and manage your own mail server, and all the headaches that come with it... let someone else do it for you.

[Piney]

Not certain what headaches are caused for you by a YAHOO account-- but running a mail server at home without a good bit of experience/expertise in the security-related aspects will most certainly cause you headaches. If its just to get a more personal email address, consider others' suggestions about obtaining just the domain name and then point that to a commercial hoisting service. One item to watch out for are, as others have mentioned are spam blacklists. Many go by IP addresses or blocks and a commercial hosting service that not too discriminating will get your mail on the lists. Another item to consider is once you've distributed your private-label email addresses , you've got to keep them available somehow should you get tired of running your own physical server(s).