this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
154 points (98.7% liked)

Selfhosted

40767 readers
1559 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

All this new excitement with Lemmy and federation has got me thinking that maybe I should learn to run my own instance. What always comes up though is how email is the orginal federated technology.

I am looking at proxmox and see that is has a built in email server, so now I am wondering if it is time to role my own.

I stopped using gmail a long time ago, and right now I use ProtonMail, but I am super frustrated with the dumb limitation of only having a single account for the app. I get why they do it, and I am willing to pay, but it is pricey and I don't know if that is my best option. I guess it is worth it since ProtonVPN is included. It looks like they are expanding their suite.

Is it worth it? Can I make it secure? Is it stupid to run it off a local computer on my home network?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] UselesslyBrisk@infosec.pub 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I stopped running my own a while ago. Its no longer really decentralized and the big players (google/microsoft) will often just blacklist you for little reason.

That said I DO maintain my own domain and backups. So i can take my email to whatever hosting provider I want.

I also noticed, during the migration, that if you simply register your domain with one of the big players (ie: Google Workspace or M365) you will often get whitelisted and email will flow easier. This was easier when they had a free tier though.

[–] SmugBedBug@lemmy.iswhereits.at 2 points 2 years ago

Got the same issue. Everything was setup properly. SPF, dkim, dmarc was all good. Server IP wasn't in any blocklists. But my messages would still fall in spam with Gmail.

Ended up setting sendgrid as a relay and all is good now.

[–] DidacticDumbass@lemmy.one 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I guess you got to play the game if you want to win. I Google and Microsoft have the same level of trust from me, so it goes to whoever makes it easier.

[–] UselesslyBrisk@infosec.pub 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Pretty much. Its kinda nuts. I just host with Google at this point. Its easier though privacy is a disaster. I consider email to be public at this point though after the Snowden stuff. Have considered moving to something like Photon but their lack of support for contact syncing makes it tough, specifically for my wife. She uses Apple Mail as well, which i THINK photon can now support via IMAP or something, but not having contacts synced is hard.

That said I back up all of my Google workspace stuff, email included, to a local synology using their app. So i have copies of everything should I need it (ie: google decides to suspend me for no reason.)

[–] DidacticDumbass@lemmy.one 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Damn. Privacy is something I was hoping would be a benefit from self-hosting.

I mean, I haven't taken the bite yet but it is way more than I can chew. I am not keen on basic stuff like encryption.

Hell, I just want to have both my email accounts on my phone without paying for it. I think privacy is worth paying for, but I need to be smart about what I trust.

[–] UselesslyBrisk@infosec.pub 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Here’s the catch with email via privacy. Unless you are gpg encrypting the email even photon doesn’t matter, as whoever you are sending to likely has it unencrypted at rest on their server.

And while tls in transit is better than it used to be with their smpts or starttls, plenty of mail servers don’t do it. So even transport is an iffy game sometimes.

At the end of the day, it’s better to

A. GPG encrypt the email. Which requires both ends to be technically competent. B. Consider it to be quasi public, like talking quietly in a coffee shop. Most won’t hear it but if someone does shrug

[–] DidacticDumbass@lemmy.one 1 points 2 years ago

Right. One of the articles someone linked basically explained this limitation. So, privacy is kind of an illusion, or a half-true marketing gimmick.