[vox-tech] How many people run their own mail server?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Alex Mandel (tech_dev at wildintellect.com):

> I had though about rolling my own mail service, and I do host my own
> website from home (dynamic ip forwarding). But decided I'd rather
> outsource my email so that it's working even if my network is down, or
> power at my house it out etc.

The lazy man's way of dealing with that problem is to be prepared to put
your server in a car and temporarily move it to a static IP anywhere else 
in the world to bridge any protracted outage.  (Just repoint to the new
IP in DNS, and you're back.[1])  Ideally, with optimal preparation, you
also have a spare hard drive on a shelf preloaded with an MTA
configuration, in case of hardware failure.

The evening of April 15, 2009, a huge power surge from a major
lightningh and wind storm destroyed my entire server.  I had a basic Web
site and MTA back online using spare hardware a couple of hours later,
and restored all backup data from offsite storage over the next two
days.

Earlier, in 2006, my service was out for a couple of days because of
incompetence from the local CLEC telco (PacBell) while moving back to my
family home instead of a rental, even though I carefully avoid using the
CLEC for Internet provisioning:  I'd meticulously planned my move of
olny a few blocks in Menlo Park with my ISP, Raw Bandwidth
Communications, which provides my household aDSL.  Because Raw Bandwidth
DSL runs over SBC/PacBell cabling, I arranged with PacBell to shut off
landline service at my rental at the end of moving day, and enable landline 
service at my family house at the beginning of the same day.  Should
have worked, and I confirmed the PacBell work order in advance.  

Come moving day, I go to the family home, and there's no dial tone.
Immediate cellular call to PacBell:  

'What happened to my work order #nnn?'
'Oh, we're not going to be doing that for a few days because the
outgoing residents haven't yet closed their residential service account.'
'My telephone number's still listed right at the top of order #nnn, isn't it?'
'Yes.'
'So, your firm decided not to bother informing me that the work order
had been deferred why, exactly?'
<mumbles>

So, PacBell shot me and Raw Bandwidth in the foot, but it was mostly
just annoying and no mail was lost because it was well within the retry
period common among MTAs.

Before that, in August 2001, I lost a few months worth of mail traffic
because of a hard drive failure for which I was poorly prepared.  Much
better after the lessons of that experience.


> With IMAP and thunderbird I don't need all the spam/filtering server
> side....

What you may not realise is that spam detection/rejection works a
_great_ deal better when done as early as possible server side, ideally 
during incoming SMTP sessions.  It's pretty easy to do routinely better
than GMail, for example.


[1] Downtime of up to, if memory serves, 4 days will not bounce any
mail, though some senders will get progress DSNs saying the mail has
been not deliverable for NN hours and will be retried.