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?

  • ChojinDSL
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    2 years ago

    I’ve been hosting my own mail server, ever since I got into Linux. Most companies where I worked before, used self hosted email.

    I’ve since migrated to using mailcow, which takes a lot of the headache out of it.

    When you first start, it’s a bit daunting. But easily manageble, once you’ve gained some experience.

    • DidacticDumbass@lemmy.oneOP
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      2 years ago

      I think that is it, I am just so unfamiliar with email and networking in general, it seems way harder than it probably is.

      I thought I would be getting a lot of different solutions, but there are only a few everyone seems to employ, mailcow being at or near the top.

      • ChojinDSL
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        2 years ago

        Mailcow definitely makes it very easy. Their official docs pretty much walk you through every step and tell you which DNS entries you need.

        Bonus with mailcow is, that you basically get a self-hosted equivalent of an Exchange server. So, contacts+calender and so on. Plus some really good antispam features.

        • DidacticDumbass@lemmy.oneOP
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          2 years ago

          It does seem to a lot. I tried setting up DNS for my tailscale account, but I got confused. I am glad when the documentation is good, means I will actually use the thing successfully.