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I DON'T RUN MY OWN MAIL SERVER ANYMORE
Nicolas Herry
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2017/12/26
1 I don't run my own mail server anymore
========================================
Since I got my first server on the net, I've always been running my
own mail server. I started with an OpenBSD box at home, behind a
rather slow DSL line, and spent quite some time configuring
`sendmail', discovering how one can express his hatred of everything
that is good in this world through the simple means of the design of
[configuration file syntax]. I also remember hesitating between
sticking with POP3 or making the jump to IMAP, and whether I should go
with [Courier] or [Cyrus-IMAP], switch to [QMail] to benefit from a
more secure implementation... The most challenging question remained
whether Maildir was better than mbox. As you can see, life was good
and simple, and setting up a mail server could be done in one evening
of hard work and pizza eating.
[configuration file syntax]
http://www.stderr.nl/Blog/Software/FreeBSD/sendmail-horror.html
[Courier] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courier_Mail_Server
[Cyrus-IMAP] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_IMAP_server
[QMail] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qmail
1.1 Mail today
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Today, things have changed. Spam, phishing and other delicacies now
represent around [97% of all email traffic] and running a
spam-filtering MDA like [SpamAssassin] is not going to cut it. In
reaction to that, many standards emerged, trying to filter out domains
displaying a bad behaviour, known spam relays, impersonating domains,
and so on. Over the course of a few years, we've seen the following
make it to our checklist when setting up a mail server:
- SPF, [Sender Policy Framework]
- DKIM, [DomainKeys Identified Mail]
- DMARC, [Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and
Conformance]
- PTR fiddling and reverse DNS lookup
Once you've learnt about all this, configured it properly, securely,
you realise that your email still doesn't make it to GMail. Why? Maybe
your public IP used to belong to some known email relay, and this IP
is now blacklisted everywhere. Who knows? /You/ certainly don't. At
least, you don't if you're not a professional. So this is what
happened: we went from a world where anyone could set up their own
mail server to one where running such a service is best left to big
corporations who can afford spending the time. Even if you can set it
up, can you maintain it?
[97% of all email traffic]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7988579.stm
[SpamAssassin] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpamAssassin
[Sender Policy Framework]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework
[DomainKeys Identified Mail]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DomainKeys_Identified_Mail
[Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMARC
1.2 A compromise
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like I say in my contact page, having my mailbox hosted by GMail was
only supposed to be a temporary solution to get by with, the time for
me to set up a nice, clean email server again after the tear in the
very fabric of reality was repaired and I would have my server fully
up and running again. But considering the list of monsters I would
have to tame this time, I was faced with a conundrum: I didn't want my
email stored and used by a company like Google, and I didn't want to
go through a nightmare of configuration to end up with a half-working
solution. Luckily, while I was still debating those questions in my
head, I received an alert from my registrar [Gandi.net] about the
expiry of my domain name. And it clicked: Gandi.net is in many ways a
dinosaur, escaped from an era where the internet was still this free
space, opened to anyone, and the company was founded by activists who
thought that since domain names cost nothing to produce, they should
be provided as a public service. Gandi.net is not just a registrar,
they also provide email hosting (as well as web hosting and VPSs,
now). So, three clicks later, I had solved my issue. Sure, I have a
quota (3GB for free, 50GB for just over 2 euros a month), but I can
get by with the wonders of Gmane/Gwene to read my lists and news, and
I can always backup my whole box with tools like OfflineIMAP and
friends. So it seems really manageable, even for someone like me, who
loves email and news so much I once spent an entire evening reading
through alt.religion.emacs without getting bored or going mad.
[Gandi.net] https://www.gandi.net
1.3 The email is dead
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As we are reaching the end of 2017, almost 20 years have passed since
I set up my first mail server. The naive world where SSL was an
advanced security layer and a 20-line recipe in SpamAssassin was the
best armor ever designed to protect your box to one where every email
is suspect and victim of its own openness. Unless you're a
professionnal, there's little chance you can still count email as a
service you set up as a hobby. In a way, the email is dead, but my
mailbox lives on. Now if you'd excuse me, I have a contact page to
update.