I was wondering how practical it would be to run my own email server at home, I’ve set up servers before and know how to forward ports and such. Would it be possible to do it on an rpi 4 and do you guys have recommendations on any free software for setting up an email server. Thanks!

  • Dym Sohin 🦾🤡
    5•3 years ago
    • do you already have some kind of server-esq thing running 24/7 (i.e. rasp-pi, NAS)?
    • do you have a static IP-address from your ISP?
    • does your ISP allows ports other than :80 and :443?
    • how often do you have internet/electricity outages?
    • do you live in a place where (natural) disasters happen often?

    most of the time, a simple 5$ VPS on digital-ocean with a docker image of https://poste.io running will be less hassle to setup and maintain. you dont have to continuously keep emails on the server either – save local copies for search and archival purposes, and make backups.

    • poVoq
      4•3 years ago

      Note however that even hosting on a VPS is likely going to land you on spam filter lists, as the IP ranges from cheap VPS hosters are typically also listed.

      Edit: a static IP isn’t really needed, but you need a unique public IP in general. Not all ISP provide that anymore due to CG-NAT, but some still enable it if you ask nicely.