1 Topic by burhen42

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Topic: Recommended software to build email servers?

Lately, I've been interested in building my own server and I thought one of the things I could use it for is for building my own personal email server.

I'm a total beginner to this sort of thing but I appreciate it needs to have
encrypted storage for my emails and be secure against possible malware and hacking attacks, which means I should rely on libre software to build the server.

So I wonder what the Hyperbola community recommends for building
an email server, besides installing it in libre hardware like Technoethical's computers?

Thanks.

2 Reply by throgh

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

Hello, I think an interesting starting-point could be the project Mailcow - especially this archived version as I don't think the dockerized one is reasonable better. It is about building your own mail-server with predefined configuration-files. Yes, first one the sources and information are on Github. But this is more about research for the first start startup as this one is done for Ubuntu and Debian!

The components are interesting:

I've tried this once with Ubuntu 14.04 back the days and think about migrating also to Hyperbola with usage of the sources from the concurrent server-system - not yet finished with thoughts about that. Another alternative could be iRedMail.

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3 Reply by throgh

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

Another link, especially focussed on OpenRC: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/ISP_M … _3.x_HowTo
And here: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/ … -linux-vps

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

4 Reply by sagaracharya

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

For smtp, I had to use gmail. Google changes the settings of my account internally to supposedly "protect me" and the smtplib with python can't login. I can't even imagine for how many months Google has prevented users from creating an account on my site!

I want to setup my own mail server ASAP. Why do you recommend mailcow @throgh? What's the problem with kamailio and postfix? I'm leaning towards kamailio.

5 Reply by throgh

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

sagaracharya wrote:

For smtp, I had to use gmail. Google changes the settings of my account internally to supposedly "protect me" and the smtplib with python can't login. I can't even imagine for how many months Google has prevented users from creating an account on my site!

I want to setup my own mail server ASAP. Why do you recommend mailcow @throgh? What's the problem with kamailio and postfix? I'm leaning towards kamailio.

No real problem. It is just not a recommendation as the project mailcow is using components and projects like dovecot, postfix and more. Also no problem with kamailio, but isn't this a SIP-server itself?

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

6 Reply by sagaracharya (edited by sagaracharya 2020-12-22 12:21:28)

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

I don't know what an SIP server is. I want to set-up a send-only mail server. I find stuff for postfix. iredmail as you said looks excellent but there's no support (easy setup tutorial) for send-only system.

Andre has flagged postfix in blacklist git!

7 Reply by throgh

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

sagaracharya wrote:

I don't know what an SIP server is. I want to set-up a send-only mail server. I find stuff for postfix. iredmail as you said looks excellent but there's no support (easy setup tutorial) for send-only system.

Andre has flagged postfix in blacklist git!

You mean this line here?

postfix:postfix:::[uses-nonsecurity] depends on openssl, [technical] Arch version is adapted to systemd, does not download sources over https and does not use SHA-512 hash

As far as I see there will be another package build against libressl so I think postfix will be also part of the future releases. Building a mail-server is not always the easiest one, perhaps this could help - little bit older: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/ … untu-16-04

Well, this is for Ubuntu, but most options could be used also on other distributions.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

8 Reply by sagaracharya

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

Yes saw those. I tried to make Exim work. Later I tried postfix. There is too much configuration that needs to be understood. They should divide config files into necessary, secondary, tertiary and so on. It's super complex.

Yes, that line. I'm not buliding a mail server. I misinterpreted things on this post. I'm just using one. After trying configuring one, I must say there's tremendous scope on user experience side. A lot can be simplified!

9 Reply by throgh

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

Therefore mailcow as example: The project itself is functional out of the box and you can build on top of the configuration-files, trying out more. For the start this is an interesting way to solve common issues. Of course: You should use your own configuration and build as you want. But mailserver can be really complicated. So dividing the complex issues one by one! smile

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Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

10 Reply by sagaracharya

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

throgh wrote:

Mailserver can be really complicated. So dividing the complex issues one by one! smile

I recommended making a mailserver from scratch. It should essentially add the component of domain confirmation to XMPP messaging:
So there's:
1. User password authentication with frontend
2. Domain name belongs to host authentication
3. Fetching messages (decoding and encoding in smtp, imap, pop3 formats)
4. Storing at appropriate locations.
5. Sanitizing malicious mail. (Guess one can use spamassasin here)
6.. (Optional) For too many users (big services), additional step of finding user exists on which server (say with multiple hosts).

The above steps are for complete mail (not just MTA or MUA or whatever). I don't see how such a complete service can be as complex as we have now. Maybe because email services are the oldest, they're still using C and are being coded in a very complex way.

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

Good points: Especially having an interface to manage the components of a mail-server is not so easy as there are not so much projects with this focus. The ones I've found so far are listed in this thread and they can be a good help being modified - especially made secure without third party access to some resources outside.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

12 Reply by sagaracharya

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

OpenSMTPD is a 1000 times better than exim and postfix. I highly recommend it. I solved the server setup part and the config files are exactly like I would have imagined. Extremely simple!

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/OpenSMTPD

is extremely helpful.

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

For the package itself: Correct. But do you have also an interface or (web)management-console for opensmtpd? I've searched and found nothing the last time. Well yes: This is some time ago.

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Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

14 Reply by sagaracharya

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

Sorry. I'm all over the place wrt contexts. opensmtpd is just mta, not a complete package. I presume by interface and management-console, you mean something like roundcube. I've not explored one that is compatible with opensmtpd since I just require sending mail through commands. People have configured roundcube with opensmtpd.

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

sagaracharya wrote:

Sorry. I'm all over the place wrt contexts. opensmtpd is just mta, not a complete package. I presume by interface and management-console, you mean something like roundcube. I've not explored one that is compatible with opensmtpd since I just require sending mail through commands. People have configured roundcube with opensmtpd.

Yes, I've thought about some web-interface for the management of the server and the e-mails. Looking around also! smile

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

16 Reply by zapper

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

I can recommend one other option, half the security, but way easier to do.  Disroot email.

If you can sign up again that is, I haven't checked yet.

Although, its all up to you if you want to...

HyperbolaBSD: The Future of Secure Libre Lightweight Operating Systems!

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Re: Recommended software to build email servers?

zapper wrote:

I can recommend one other option, half the security, but way easier to do.  Disroot email.

If you can sign up again that is, I haven't checked yet.

Although, its all up to you if you want to...

Closed up so far, but I think it would be helpful getting possible management-interfaces within a list. The more e-mail is getting back out of some centralized services, the better. smile

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!