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Ask HN: E-mail providers and mail servers

5 points by izak30 ↗ HN
I don't want to start providing e-mail service for my clients, but recent incidents with my current provider have driven me to take my business elsewhere, or roll my own.

What do you use for an e-mail provider, if you run your own servers for your app?

If you do/don't run your own mail server, why?

9 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 31.8 ms ] thread
qhoxie
Depending on your requirements, Google Apps have been a pleasure to work with for a number of my projects.
izak30
Yeah, I would like something that is a little easier to manage for multiple domains, GA has no unified control panel, although I would gladly pay for one if it existed.
modoc
Personally, I run postfix and uw-imap (although there are many good imap options out there) on a dedicated server. It's easy, very solid, and I can do all kinds of neat tricks with it as needed. Plus if ever goes down, I can go in and fix it myself.
izak30
Can you help? http://charleston.craigslist.org/cpg/878965203.html (this is me)
modoc
I'm not sure you can support TLS (SSL) on multiple domains, at least not without running different postfix instances on unique IP:ports for each domain. Unless you're just using sub-domains and have a wildcard cert.

It's the same issue you run into trying to host multiple SSL protected sites on the same IP. The server (Apache or Postfix) has to serve out the cert to encrypt the channel before reading the request data (which might contain the domain the client is connecting to).

If you just want to have TLS setup on a primary domain, and also handle mail for other domains (without SSL protection), that's pretty easy.

izak30
It was my understanding that the cert was for the domain of the server and not of the e-mail address.

If I have this completely wrong, let me know.

modoc
correct, the cert is for the domain, however in your CL posting you said you needed multiple domain virtual hosting. The cert is specific to a mail server hostname. It really depends on how you want the actual MX record and outgoing mail server setup.

So if you're hosting three domains: domainone.com, domaintwo.com, and domainthree.com, you have a few options.

You can set the MX of all three domains to mail.mymailserver.com, and have a single cert. However, that means all of your end users will have to point their IMAP/POP clients and outgoing SMTP server settings to mail.mymailserver.com, instead of mail.domainonce.com which might seem more logical to them. It also means that your outgoing mail headers will show the mail.mymailserver.com hostname, and you'll need to setup the right SPF records to avoid being flagged as spam due to domain mis-match.

Or you can set the MX for each domain to mail.domainone.com, mail.domaintwo.com, etc...

It really depends on your needs, and the needs of the client/users who are checking and sending mail, and how public you want the fact that all the domains are on the same server.

Feel free to follow up with me via e-mail. devon@digitalsanctuary.com

martian
One option would be to buy cheap shared hosting plans (I've seen as low as $6/mo) and use them only for email. Not always perfect, and things like SSL might be messier, but cheap and easy and these days you'll get as much if not more storage as Google Apps. One drawback to a shared plan is that you might be on the same IP as some spammer and you might get blacklisted. SPF records are easy to set up and can really help with that.

I used to manage an email server and it was not very pleasant for someone who just wanted to hack. :-) If you do end up running your own mail server(s) you'll want to be sure you have good spam/virus filtering or users will start complaining. I had really good luck installing Postini a couple years ago -- reduced spam by nearly 100%.

izak30
As a final note, we've ended up choosing FuseMail, if you have any questions about them, let me know.