I’m exploring some options to see if it’s viable to self host my email account. Currently I have:

  • A home server that I can host the entire email stack but I cannot open the SMTP port there
  • An AWS account where I can create a VM with SMTP ports open to the internet and reverse DNS support, also I have a domain and AWS SES configured and approved to send emails

Ideally I would want to send and receive from my home server, but that is not possible, so I’m exploring some alternatives:

For receiving emails:

  • Cheap VM with postfix and my home server with dovecot, essentially forwarding all emails to my home server where I want them to be. I don’t know if this setup works tho.

  • Keep everything in a VM, with the downside that I’ll need to do extra work there as it will have all my data. If possible I don’t want to go that route.

For sending emails:

  • Sending from the same VM receiving emails, and have everything managed

  • Use AWS SES to send emails in my behalf

Any input or opinion is appreciated. I’m currently exploring options, I haven’t made any decisions, so if you have a better alternative feel fee to share.

Thanks!

  • @fuser@quex.ccEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    you have the main problem in hand. You’ll still need to do all the DKIM / rDNS stuff to be certain your mail is accepted, but using SES as the source gives you a significant leg up vs originating locally. I don’t see why you can’t run dovecot and postfix on separate systems, but a single VM isn’t bad if it’s properly secured. Hosting SMTP/IMAP is not that difficult but you need to make sure you don’t accidentally misconfigure things and become an open relay - as with all internet facing systems, mail services are targeted constantly so you should use fail2ban to deter them.