Hi Zygo, What is your email setup specifically? Like, what software do you use?
And does anyone on list have any experience with migrating out of Gmail to a self-hosted setup for email? I have a VPS, and I'm using exim to just forward messages sent to my domain to my Gmail account, but I would really like to be just keeping it all on my server and dropping the Gmail. If anyone else is in a similar situation, maybe we can work it out together. Cheers, Ramana On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 9:28 PM, Zygo Blaxell < [email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Aug 08, 2012 at 08:01:27PM +0200, Thomas Harding wrote: > > On 08/08/2012 08:27, Ramana Kumar wrote: > > >Thomas's reply (below) wasn't sent to the list originally. > > >It seems like in the right direction, but I feel the difficulty is > > >still quite high. > > I agree that it's hard, in the same sense that owning and maintaining > a house is harder than renting an apartment. > > I've been running my own mail servers on free software for ~17 years now > (since I first had access to a public static IP), and it's something > I'd gladly stop doing if it weren't for the costs, disadvantages, and > risks inherent in delegating that responsibility to someone else. > > > Not so : > > > > * all you need is an ISP which offers for free or as a non free > > option a fixed IPv4 address (my case is "comes together, no extra > > cost"...) [see also inbound 25], and a "domain" you own. > > > > * If your mail cannot outbound from your ISP net /25, you can also > > relay on your ISP servers (can't reamain the option in Postfix, but > > it is like "forwarders" in Bind). This is a bad workaround -- no > > direct "talk", you can be spied -- Not my case : there is an option > > on my ADSL box setup to allow outbound 25 :) > > > * "normally" there is no restriction on 25/inbound on any ISP. If > > any, the only solution is to switch... ISP > > You can often solve all three problems at once by renting a VPS host > (using the money you save by using the cheapest ISP at home, or not > bothering with an ISP at home at all). > > If you get a VPS with a high user-to-host ratio that is located in a > data center where power and cooling are abundant, it can be kinder to > the Earth than a server in your basement, especially if you are living > on-grid and considering local UPS backup power for the mail server. > > A paid VPS hosting company is (at least in theory) under contract > to provide services exclusively to you. This has different privacy > implications than a gratis provider who is (in well-established industry > practice) under contract to provide services to others using your data, > or a monopoly provider who provides the only service available to you > because you live in a regulated area. > > Some VPS services offer preconfigured disk images for various tasks, e.g. > Debian configured with Postfix, ClamAV, and SpamAssassin. An experienced > user can have a new domain up and running in a few minutes with just > a credit card. An inexperienced user can gain the gateway experience > necessary for maintaining their own dedicated server host later on, > without a big up-front expenditure on dedicated hardware. > > > * "submission" port is for your personal access to your server to > > post while you connect from any location (never filtered by isps). I > > had to setup that after a journey "read only" in my family with "no > > TSP/UDP 25 outbound" :P > > If you configure a VPN through your VPS host, you can protect yourself > from all kinds of local snooping/spoofing/filtering attacks, e.g. insecure > wireless, or just an intrusive local ISP. A VPN just moves all those > problems to the VPS data center, but that's often a huge improvement. > > It also means you don't have to run around securing every client and > server application individually--you secure only the ones that interact > directly with the public Internet, and firewall the rest so they are > accessible only through the VPN. > > A VPN service could operate the other way as well, providing a static > IP which would route packets through the VPN to your mail host located > elsewhere. This would let you keep your data on hardware you own > instead of having it reside on the VPS server (e.g. you could put your > mail server in a VM on your laptop and carry it around with you) and > removes the static-IP, routable-IP, and unblocked-port-25 requirements > from your home ISP. > > > As a notice : this is also sadly really difficult to setup Mutt > > (text-mail client) with smtp+SSL and imaps, maybe Mutt authors could > > work on that, then integrate html. > > I like mutt's "all email is inert text rendered by an external program" > model. It's not difficult to hit 'v', pick the HTML text out of the > message, and read the HTML interactively (or throw it at a web browser) > for the few times it's needed, and that's much better than accidentally > confirming my address to spammers or doing even worse things upon receipt > of an email all the times it's not needed. > > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) > > iEYEARECAAYFAlAiy+sACgkQgfmLGlazG5xLDwCgt6oETk8iASOMrQeywHTVR2Rl > A9kAoNsu088AROl9jZrF0ps+Xni63Y0V > =FCYq > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > >
