On Sat, 08 Sep 2018, Ken M wrote: > Just curious how many of you use openbsd to run your own personal email > server? > Do you find it a hassle to manage in any way?
I've managed my personal domain on and off over the years (not at the moment, but that will change again later this year). I've used Debian, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. By far the easiest setup is OpenBSD in my opinion. OpenSMTPd + spamd and add spamassassin and dovecot to the mix and you have a pretty good solution. Using sieve with dovecot you can even filter email before it get's delivered to mailboxes if you need to. That said, the biggest challenge when self hosting email is not on the OS or programs you use, but on the fact of spam. Keeping spam away is not difficult but requires some work (take a look at P. Hansteen's blog. He does an amazing job explaining this sort of things). Another challenge is be sure your mx hosts are "reputable". Meaning they don't get up on any blacklist over there (a lot of admins use them on their smtps ... which I think is madness ... but anyway). This can be because of the ip you get assigned on your vm is reused by an spammer or a million other reasons. Get your emails delivered can be a problem sometimes. And maybe another problem you may encounter is reliability. You should have at least 2 mx hosts. Thet involves a bit of work (on OpenBSD keep spamd in sync between hosts and other stuff ...). Basically be sure you can rely on your setup. If somebody sends you an email you'll get it. I hope it helps. -- Paco Esteban. GnuPG key: https://onna.be/44CA735E.asc
