this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2025
105 points (96.5% liked)

Selfhosted

60281 readers
645 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

Detailed Rules Post

  1. Be civil.

  2. No spam.

  3. Posts are to be related to self-hosting.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or readme if you're providing a link.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title.

  6. No trolling.

  7. Promotion posts require active participation, with an account that is at least 30 days old. F/LOSS without a paywall has exceptions, with requirements. See the rules link for details.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
ruud@lemmy.world
Loki@lemmy.world
CannaVet@lemmy.world
devve@lemmy.world
ayyy@sh.itjust.works
curbstickle@anarchist.nexus
curbstickle_lw@lemmy.world
105
Have you tried self-hosting your own email recently? (news.idlestate.org)
submitted 9 months ago by azdle@news.idlestate.org to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
62 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I tried maybe 15 years ago and it went about as well as you'd expect for back then. But I'm starting to get the itch again.

Have any of you tried relatively recently? How impossible is it to get reliable deliverability to gmail and whatnot these days?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] nitrolife@rekabu.ru 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Well... as I already wrote, my home server is literally on the Internet because I rent a static public IP address from the provider.

But if you have a VPS, then you just need to do port forwarding to your server with a VPS, and then add the following entries to the mx DNS server:

you.domain.              21600   IN      MX      10 you.first.vps.
you.domain.              21600   IN      MX      20 you.second.vps.

Where 10 and 20 are the server priority Or if the VPS is part of your domain then:

you.domain.              21600   IN      MX      10 first.vps.you.domain. 
you.domain.              21600   IN      MX      20 second.vps.you.domain. 

first.vps.you.domain.             21600   IN      A       1.1.1.1
second.vps.you.domain.        21600   IN      A       2.2.2.2

And if you also have IPv6, you can do

first.vps.you.domain.             21600   IN      AAAA       fd00::1
second.vps.you.domain.        21600   IN      AAAA       fd00::2

Where 1.1.1.1, 2.2.2.2, fd00::1 and fd00::2 are the addresses of your VPS

You also need to enter the address in the SPF:

you.domain.              21600   IN      TXT     "v=spf1 +mx -all"

What does it mean

v=spf1 is the SPF version.

+mx – it is allowed to send mail from the IP addresses specified in the MX records of the domain.

-all – prohibits sending from any other servers (hard refusal).

Also, in order for the signature to work on the mail server, you need to make several TXT entries (for a detailed explanation, see my links about DKIM):

keyname.__domainkey.you.domain. TXT "v=DKIM1; ...%DKIM params%"

and

you.domain.             86400   IN      TXT     "v=DMARC1...%dmarc params%"

And you need ask you VPS provider set PTR for you VPS IP address with first.vps.you.domain. Or some providers access that config in web panel.