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!

  • joshuarupp@artemis.camp
    2·
    1 year ago

    If you are saying you can’t because your ISP blocks port 25 there are a few solutions that you can use that are free as long as you don’t send or receive over 2000 emails a month or something like that. I have used both of these solutions with my last ISP since they blocked port 25. I used http://ghettosmtp.com as a relay server. Wesley, the provider of the service is a pretty neat guy. I used https://www.smtp2go.com as my external outbound relay. They both worked great as a work around. I have ATT fiber now and 25 was blocked until I called in and requested it to be unblocked.

    Anyways, I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions!