{"id":553,"date":"2021-12-02T04:37:24","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T04:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tults.com\/?page_id=553"},"modified":"2022-01-24T00:13:50","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T00:13:50","slug":"mail-server","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/tults.com\/index.php\/systems-engineering\/mail-server\/","title":{"rendered":"Mail Server"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis: This is a simple one – I wanted to build my own mail server. I do not like using a generic email address, and I have administered a mail server for a long time, but have never had my own one. So, I set up the domain tults.com. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Setting up Ubuntu<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I consider myself a little bit of a linux aficionado, having had various distros installed as my primary OS since 2017. I have built, managed and setup several servers with various different distros. For my mail server, I wanted to use Headless Ubuntu 20.04 lts, so that it will run for a long time. In addition to this, the platform I use to host my websites, vultr, makes it VERY easy to setup an ubuntu 20.04 server.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vultr is an excellent hosting platform, and has proven to be very cheap, reliable and useful in my various different projects I have undertaken. To sign up to vultr or to check them out – see here<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I setup an ubuntu server – importantly with 4GB of ram, and got started. First – I wanted easy remote access, so using the vultr interface i added my ssh keys for my regular computers, so I can connect as root when I need to. Now – strictly – this is poor security practice. You should never connect as root as your primary method of interacting with your server – but, it is just me, and I intend to add another account later, when everything is setup. So I can justify it to myself for the short term. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then bam. Server is built. I can ssh in. First things first, update and upgrade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

$sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Thats really it for setting up ubuntu with Vultr. Easy, quick and I can setup my server in Australia, which of course I want to do – hopefully it means I am giving my money to someone local rather than overseas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Choosing a Mail Platform<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Now I have a server, it is time to choose a platform. I am too poor to buy on-premise exchange, and I also only have like one mail account, so an enterprise level solution is not necessary. We also just setup a linux server, so exchange seems kinda silly. I avoided google mail – again, because I am poor and I wanted to host my own server. So – a google search of best FOSS (free and open source) mail servers returns the following candidates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
MailServer<\/strong><\/td>Pros<\/strong> <\/td>Cons<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
iRedMail<\/td>– Forced TLS
– Tonnes of documentation and forums
– Unlimited accounts
– Works well with ubuntu
– built in antispam<\/td>		– Not the most popular server
– Not overly feature rich<\/td><\/tr>
Postal<\/td>– Popular<\/td>– Poor customer service
– hard to google issues because postal always comes up with the USPS<\/td><\/tr>
hMail Server<\/td>– Easy to use and manage<\/td>– Build 
– mostly for windows
<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>
Table 1: Demonstrating the pros and cons of different mail servers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
As you  an see above, I was pretty much already sold on iRedMail. They have a lot of documentation – which I love – and they have tonnes of great reviews as well as paid technical support if needed. So, they were the ideal choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Building, setting up, issues<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Records<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Synopsis: This is a simple one – I wanted to build my own mail server. I do not like using a generic email address, and I have administered a mail server for a long time, but have never had my own one. So, I set up the domain tults.com. Setting up Ubuntu I consider myselfContinue reading →<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":169,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-553","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","no-thumb"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tults.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tults.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tults.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tults.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tults.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/tults.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":790,"href":"https:\/\/tults.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/553\/revisions\/790"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tults.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tults.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}