I would love to run my mail server self-hosted at home. I have a small N100 box that I would like to dedicate for this purpose.

Needs

  • capability to handle a handful of domains
  • each domain has at least one user (no more than a handful each)
  • the ability for users to have multiple aliases
  • relatively small amounts of email per day total (mostly incoming)

Concerns / Possible Mitigations:

  • residential IP won’t work with SMTP
  • I have a Vultr VPS I could use as a relay between the world and me (IP reports as clean on blacklist checkers [both IPv4 and IPv6])

Questions:

  • Could I set up WireGuard between the home server and VPS then have that handle sending out the email?
  • What software stack would I need? Would this be something like postfix to postfix or…?
  • NikStalwart@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Could I set up WireGuard between the home server and VPS then have that handle sending out the email?

    Yes, you can.

    What software stack would I need? Would this be something like postfix to postfix or…?

    I don’t think you need postfix-to-postfix. You just configure your VPS server’s VPN-facing IP address in your dovecot or mail client (instead of the conventual localhost address).

  • Ox450x6c@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    > Could I set up WireGuard between the home server and VPS then have that handle sending out the email?

    Yes, however wireguard protocol is easy to detect, my provider is blocking this protocol, so I use xray (which is not VPN, but can be used as bridge), it works great.

    > What software stack would I need? Would this be something like postfix to postfix or…?

    As an option: try maddy, it is easy to setup.

  • thaexistentialist@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Here is a guide that I found helpful when setting up my email server: https://workaround.org/ispmail-bookworm/whats-new/

    It allows for multiple aliases and domains. Has spam blocking and uses both postfix and dovecot for handling the mail.

    ​

    Vultr blocks outgoing port 25 so you’ll have to ask support for it to be opened.

    ​

    Test your residential IP by connecting to smtp/imap servers using telnet.

  • roman5588@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Mailu or mail cow and smtp2go for outgoing. Don’t make a hard decision be harder than it needs to!