Comment by readingnews | Hacker News Reader

Comment by readingnews | Hacker News Reader

I have run my own site, on my own domain (with email!) since 1994. The domain was lost and recaptured in 1998, so I suppose by the registrar, since 1998...

I go through spurts of updating and then not updating it. Some parts of this article resonate with me... is it worth it? Does anyone care? Will anyone ever see it? At the same time, if you view it as an item for ones self, then all of those pressures go away.

I think people do not realize the power they have (or they always make it out to be a much larger problem than it is) to run ones own server (perhaps both web and email). Before you flame, I have been setting up web/email for decades, and there are plenty of online tutorials (I wrote a few). The real point is that even with a little effort, the rewards are interesting. It is not for everyone, but I think the DIY spirit has a place here (in web pages and personal systems on the net).

Sorry for rambling, I feel compelled to say something... so many comments in other threads turn into "you can never keep up with a web or email server". I feel this person needs kudos for showing that it is really not too difficult.

Many things tech people do are basically equivalent to having a little garden in the back yard. Gardening isn't for everyone either. Especially if weeds keep you up at night, or the idea that an apache 0-day might drop any second and bots might take over your old LAMP site before you get around to ssh'ing in and updating it, these sorts of pastimes are probably not for you...

Great analogy!

Hi readingnews, I see the benefits of creating your running your own site/blog/bliki/digital-garden on a hosted or even your own server. You can tweak and make it into whatever you want. But what's the joy or reward of running your own mail server? I can imagine the feeling of being independent. But I imagine it also creates a bit of stress in keeping the email server running, spam free and secure?

One person’s stress is another one’s bliss

> I can imagine the feeling of being independent.

Seriously, this is a total stress reliever. A ton of things are tied to email. What am I paying gmail or fastmail or whom ever? Nothing? Oh, so they can turn it off whenever, or lock me out or whatever, for no reason. Not with my own server.

> But I imagine it also creates a bit of stress in keeping the email server running, spam free and secure?

Again, I used to maintain the gentoo HOWTO on postfix/amavisd-new/spamassassin before the wiki crashed and someone else redid it. I have setup so many corporate wide spam filters... there is no stress in it.

You trade the stress of being locked out by fastmail with the stress of being blacklisted by the mail providers of the people you send mail to, and more importantly the people and governments and banks you receive mail from.

I can’t speak for everyone but I make enough money that messing around with e-mail spam is not worth it, when I’d rather be playing my instruments or whatever.

I do my email through my registrar (gandi) so I don’t have to worry about free email going away, but before that I paid for zoho.

Basically the reason I selfhost is to save time, not to have to muck around. Luckily I knew ansible from work so it wasn’t that much work in the beginning to set that up for my services.

> Seriously, this is a total stress reliever. A ton of things are tied to email. What am I paying gmail or fastmail or whom ever? Nothing? Oh, so they can turn it off whenever, or lock me out or whatever, for no reason. Not with my own server.

Automate occasional backups and use a domain you own outside of that service and they can't lock you out of anything except, potentially, any email you've received since you last took a backup. If Google or Fastmail went up in smoke tomorrow, you'd have all the hassle of... creating an account at one of the 1500 other services and changing your MX records.

You're avoiding an unlikely situation with a low impact and in exchange taking on managing your own mail deliverability where having issues delivering mail is very likely and has the impact of your mail simply not being received with likely no notice of the failure.

I self host pretty much everything. I don't mess with email. I have several times in the past. It's just not worth it to me at all.

No stress and hardly any work once you get the configuration right - which usually comes down to configuring a smart server for outgoing mail, one or more domains for incoming mail and some form of spam filtering - Spamassassin being a good candidate. Make sure your user's passwords are up to snuff and the software is up to date (which can largely be automated) and the total maintenance time is usually quite a bit less than 8 hours per year.

* Exim or Postfix as MTA

* Dovecot as MDA, add managesieve and you'll be able to sort/filter/file mail based on just about any combination of criteria

* Spamassassin to keep out all those offers you can't refuse

* Roundcube or Rainloop for web mail, looking at the same IMAP account as you use on your other devices

I've never had any of my servers 'hacked' in those 26+ years.

> But what's the joy or reward of running your own mail server?

Not having to deal with rate limits or weirdness in regards to delivering mail from software in an automated manner, which would be there with any of the other "big" hosts.

For example, currently i have the following hooked up to a self-hosted e-mail server:

  - Nextcloud/ownCloud
  - Mattermost/Rocket.Chat
  - Drone CI/GitLab
  - OpenProject
  - PeerTube
  - SonarQube
  - Zabbix

Or any number of other pieces of software that could send lots of other e-mails.

If i use my own self-hosted mail server, then there are no odd spam filters or whatever to deal with (unless i introduce my own) - i send as many messages as i need and i receive all of them as well, plus all of the data stays wherever i want it to. This is also relevant for older software that might have problems with the more secure methods of delivering mails.

Oh and there's not a lot to think about, pricing wise, either.

Lastly, running a basic mail server is exceedingly simple with https://github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver No need to manually configure mail delivery agents or whatever. In my eyes, a mail server with everything it needs should be a single executable/container, with toggleable bits of functionality, rather than some overcomplicated amalgamation of mixed and matched pieces that would need lots of your time to maintain.

I've been running my own services since around 1996 and have never looked back. The scare stories told by those who either can not or do not want to run their own services and for some reason feel the need to dissuade others from doing so are just that, scare stories. Running your own services may not be for everyone but then again, what is?

From the 486DX2-66 under the stairs via the Pentium-90-under-the-stairs, the BP-6 with dual overclocked Celeron-333s, the re-purposed Virgin Webplayer when I emigrated and needed something small and light while looking for a house, the Intel SS4200 and now a DL380G7 (under the stairs, of course), from Slackware via Redhat to Debian, from a hand-crafted Sendmail config to Exim, from a time when spam was non-existent to a time when spam is something which seems to bother others but which is stopped in its tracks at the gates it has been one unbroken chain of enjoying the freedom of being in control.

I tried to hide one of my handguns under your stairs and, yeah, no room at all

Put it in the server, plenty of room in those old boxen.

And that’s why they pay you the big bucks, sensei

Plenty of space, just get bigger stairs.

Having said that, the total amount of space taken up by the server rack is about 80x110x170cm, half of which is used as a produce drying rack which uses the heat and air flow from the fan in the bottom of the rack to dry fruit/mushrooms/herbs and more of such. This is what it looks like:

https://rimgo.esmailelbob.xyz/a/M4Lbf1K

By now the D-Link switch has been replaced with a HP, a NetApp DS4243 with a varying number of drives in it sits two slots under the server and the remaining empty slots are covered with blanks to improve air flow. Total power consumption lies around 250-300W depending on load, about 170W of which is taken by the server which idles at 150W. Power use is of no issue given the 15KW solar installation on the roof of the new barn I built a few years ago, the residual heat also helps to warm the 2nd floor - which, being well-insulated, does not need any extra heating even in the Swedish winter.

Dammit I think I went to the wrong house

I think your power bill exceeds my Digital Ocean bill by quite a bit, but you’re having more fun.

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