[Discuss] email server in Linux

[dsr at randomstring.org (Dan Ritter)]

Kent Borg wrote: 
> On 6/12/20 10:29 PM, Tom Luo wrote:
> > Does anyone have experience setting a private email server in Ubuntu?
> 
> I run postfix and dovecot on Debian.
> 
> But a warning: You are heading into very rarefied territory here. I like
> think it gives me some sort of elite bragging rights, but I suspect the
> reality these days is this is too obscure for that, it just makes me a kook.

Nah.

> Spam is a problem, I used to use spamassassin but on one server rebuild I
> left it off and now I just use client side spam detection, and it doesn't
> work very well.

A combination of greylisting and RBLs have mostly solved this
for me.

Greylisting: when a new domain sends you mail, you initially
reject it with a soft "I'm too busy right now" error. Real mail
servers will queue it for redelivery. Spammers will move on.
After some period of time -- 5 minutes? 15? -- you accept
redeliveries, and you generally continue to accept messages from
that domain without further delays. This is aggravating for 
many account signup procedures / lost password systems, but
great in most other contexts.


> Another suggestion: Don't offer e-mail addresses to others, or only to a
> very few (spouse...) because doing tech support can be a lot of work. I
> don't have an iphone, why can't my sister Google up out how to install my
> self-signed certificate herself?

Hardly anyone should be using self-signed certs for mail these days;
Let's Encrypt is free and very reliable.

-dsr-