Re:Ask HN: Are you aware of a sane path to selfhosted email ...
by brudgers on Friday June 07, 2024 @03:26PM
(#40612043)
In my time on HN I have read what I consider a non-trivial number of informed opinions regarding self-hosting email.
To me, as a hobby is a perfectly sane reason. As a business decision, is generally madness (the exception being businesses where external email servers would be a legal or security issue).
The problem is most ordinary email is accepted via whitelist. So general communication is not just difficult if you have your own email server, it's difficult if you pick an "off-brand" email provider for your business.
Ask me how I know. I'm glad you asked.
Back in 2007 I launched my architectural practice. Because selling was hard, I spent my money buying a domain and time building a website. I used GoDaddy because I had heard of it (and for context it would be a couple of years before I heard of Python). My domain hosting came with email hosting as well.
In 2010, I had a client who couldn't get my emails. An important client. I thought it was a Godaddy problem. But I'm pretty sure it wasn't. I believe their email server was configured to reject everything from GoDaddy IP addresses.
Why? It was a small power co-op. Critical infrastructure. As best I can tell they outsourced Exchange Server management to a local IT consultant. The IT consultant followed best practices because that was easy. And I was just another vendor and my email was my problem. It would be ridiculous to expect my client to lower their security for my email problem.
migrate to that solution
Self-hosting email is probably not a solution. Good luck.
To me, as a hobby is a perfectly sane reason. As a business decision, is generally madness (the exception being businesses where external email servers would be a legal or security issue).
The problem is most ordinary email is accepted via whitelist. So general communication is not just difficult if you have your own email server, it's difficult if you pick an "off-brand" email provider for your business.
Ask me how I know. I'm glad you asked.
Back in 2007 I launched my architectural practice. Because selling was hard, I spent my money buying a domain and time building a website. I used GoDaddy because I had heard of it (and for context it would be a couple of years before I heard of Python). My domain hosting came with email hosting as well.
In 2010, I had a client who couldn't get my emails. An important client. I thought it was a Godaddy problem. But I'm pretty sure it wasn't. I believe their email server was configured to reject everything from GoDaddy IP addresses.
Why? It was a small power co-op. Critical infrastructure. As best I can tell they outsourced Exchange Server management to a local IT consultant. The IT consultant followed best practices because that was easy. And I was just another vendor and my email was my problem. It would be ridiculous to expect my client to lower their security for my email problem.
migrate to that solution
Self-hosting email is probably not a solution. Good luck.