Email server progress?

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#1

The current google/microsoft/amazon internet gatekeepers have spelled out a terrible fate. Communication wars is beginning in the USA. Services are polarised now, and opposing groups to the party are suppressed by Cloudfare, Amazon servers, and search engines. It’ll only get worse. Thankfully, we have opensource projects like FreedomBox. I know y’all have been working on an email server for a while now so that’s great progress to self sustainably. ZeroNet is also a good platform but I need an email to communicate on a professional level. Gmail is my main provider and now I’m scared of the google platform because of its behaviour as a company. How high is the email server priority? Also for an unrelated question, what is the voltage requirements of your FreedomBox hardware? I have a custom 5v rail for my ARM server rack. I have a boost converter so I can step up but I would need to know the amps too.

The FreedomBox project looked like a cool project, I would never think it would turn into a necessity :frowning:

#2

People must learn using tools such Retroshare, Patchwork/Manyverse.
Until email server available in Freedombox use things like Retroshare (amazing tool!) or setup an email server with OpenSMTPD and Dovecot:

Email providers comparation:

Stay away from shitty protonmail and such providers.

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#3

Thanks for the examples/suggestions. I’ll take a look

#4

The main problem with running your own email system, as I do, is that you really need a static IP address, and one which is not in a netblock of IP addresses regarded as ‘dial up IP addresses’, as most systems will block you.
I have a hosted virtual system with a hosting company, which acts as a mail relay for me. My real mail system lives on my home network ,and I will be porting to run on same system as I am now running FreedomBox. My home system is my primary MX host, but the hosted system is secondary for receiving which helps mail reliability when my IP address changes.
I have some work on automating setup of a mail server as part of what would be needed for a Small Organisation Server. It uses postfix rather than opensmtpd, and is a Work in progress.
I have also just split of the external DNS bits into put-dns, but am waiting for that to come out of the NEW queue before I restrofit into smallorganisationserver

I am learning about FreedomBox and DJango while getting Zoph going as an app, and should be able to use that knowledge when migrating my mail system.

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#5

Sounds cool. My IP address is practically static even though I don’t pay for a dynamic one. My VPN on my home network still works for three years now. I haven’t changed its address in the key file so I know it hasn’t changed. Running an email server on my network doesn’t seem like a bad idea because of that. I know there are extra steps to be recognised as a valid email server. I think I can get away with something like
example@145.75.1.45

It doesn’t bother me too much. Everything I’ll send will probably end up in others junk mail but whatever.

#6

The key thing from the mail delivery point of view is what you find if you enter your IP address in something like http://www.anti-abuse.org/multi-rbl-check/ does it show up as one to block, that is for you as a sender.
For receiving mail, I think technically example@[145.75.1.45] is still valid, I suspect most mail clients will tell you it is a syntax error and insist you enter a valid mail address.

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#7

Ah, you are saying I could have inherited I blocked IP address. Thanks for the link! On other “what’s my IP” sites my IP shows up completely clean with no comments.

#8

Concerning the blacklisting of dynamic IPs, I was hoping that this front server idea could simplify to solve the problem. It may also be interesting that https://freedombone.net seems to have implemented email already.