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Here's what I do for e-mail, with historical reasons for various
aspects. Also a question about being blacklisted...
I've run my own SMTP server for years, but always had incoming mail
forward to my ISP so I didn't have to worry about storage and backup
of e-mail. Also that meant I never had to run a POP or IMAP server.
I was running my own DNS server, Web server, etc.
Eventually, mail became more critical, and I couldn't afford the
occasional DSL outages, power failures, and such that cut my server
off from the world, so I moved the DNS service to my ISP, and pointed
the MX record to them directly. Now my SMTP server gets no incoming
mail.
However, I still use the SMTP server for my outgoing e-mail. I
connect to it from various e-mail clients on various client machines
and send to the world. This allows me to monitor the outgoing e-mail
by watching the SMTP log.
It also avoids issues I had previously encountered with ISPs throttling
e-mails. I do daily mailings of technical tips to a list of several
hundred people. (Not spam. All of them have asked to be on my list.)
However, I found that my ISP had configured their SMTP server to slow
down the handshake, accepting only one recipient address from my e-mail
client every 15 seconds. Using my own SMTP server bypasses all such
issues.
However, in the era of spam commonly forging the "From" address,
there are always a few spams floating around that claim to be from
me. I see the occasional bounce when they don't get through to the
spamee. I can tell by examining the headers that they're not coming
from my machine, just being sent as though from my e-mail address.
How would I know if my outgoing tips were being blacklisted at any
level?
I get enough positive feedback that I can be sure they are getting
through to my recipients at various large corporations, commercial
ISPs, home users, etc. So, I'm definitely not being blocked in any
large scale way. However, a couple of my recipients (including my
wife, unfortunately) tell me that my messages keep ending up in
their spam folders, being quarantined, etc.
I've written my own custom mailer, which sends a separate copy of
the message to each recipient as a "To" address, making no use of
CC or BCC, and never sending to more than one recipient at a time.
This should prevent any single receiving server from detecting a
large BCC list on a single message to many of its users. Is there
something else I should be doing to look less spammish?
Thanks for any advice!
--Fred
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Fred Stluka -- mailto:fred@bristle.com -- http://bristle.com/~fred/
Bristle Software, Inc -- http://bristle.com -- Glad to be of service!
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Mike Leone wrote:
Isaac Bennetch (bennetch@gmail.com) had this to say on 12/19/07 at 20:45:
Hello list,
I'm wondering what everyone does for their email hosting. I imagine
many of you, like me, have your own domain name registered and receive
mail through an address at that domain. What do you do for email
hosting (and web hosting, for that matter)?
I run it all on my home server.
We heard from Mike Chirico last week who passes his mail through
Gmail/Google Apps. I imagine some of you run mailservers on a box in
your home (how do you deal with network outages and being RBLed for
being on a residential IP?), some probably have colocated servers or
Never been RBLed, actually, in the 7 years I've run my own personal little
mail server.
dedicated hosting "somewhere" (where? is it cheap? Do you get enough
control over your account?). I'm curious what works for you.
I currently have all my hosting through a friend's colocated server,
but he wants to discontinue running the server; so I'm looking for a
new mail host. I run fetchmail on the server and then IMAP or mutt or
webmail to see all my accounts from my central location and would love
That's what I do. Courier IMAP, and then mutt over ssh remotely (or
Squirrelmail), and Thunderbird at home.
to continue with that flexibility. I fear running my own server on my
residential cable modem line because of reliability concerns; I can't
afford to lose work-related email if my cable goes out.
I have DSL. But my mail to my mike-leone.com domain is not work-related.
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
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___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
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