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A lot of people advise against running your own mail server; they recommend using a SAS that is more experienced in this area (Google Apps Gmail, AWS WorkMail, etc).

I want to run Postfix MTA to forward email from a few custom domains through to Hotmail or Gmail. At the moment I use Google Apps Gmail, but the huge setup overhead seems wasteful.

foo@example.com => alpha@gmail.com
bar@example.net => beta@hotmail.com
baz@example.org => gamma@yahoo.com

I realise I won't have the expertise to handle spam or large loads or email, but as I'm forwarding straight onto a reliable email service, is this still an issue?

I am not expecting many emails at all (they are essentially contact points for small brick-and-mortar businesses) - 5 emails/day max.

My query is:

  • Am I really getting in too deep?
  • What other problems might I face?

(This is not a question on how to set this up, but how much trouble will I have later. Setting Postfix up on a t1.micro EC2 instance and configuring the forwarding will be not be any technical trouble.)

potato123
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  • I used to do my own mail server. Outsourcing is attractive, but I've been burned as they suck in you with low rates (that you can't match yourself), but then start jacking up the price. Also, my uptime with my own server was just as good... I may be switching back to hosting my own again soon. – Brian Knoblauch Nov 11 '15 at 20:47

2 Answers2

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It's going to take work. If you're not opposed to it taking work, then you're completely fine. Gmail works so well because they have a team of people dedicated to it.

Make sure you set up the SPF record(s) properly. Then, figure out some way to set up a fallback - If your server suddenly gets blacklisted, how do you get email flowing again?

I recommend you do it, but start with emails not so mission critical e.g. an email account you use for newsletters. It'll be fun and a great learning experience. If you like it and it seems to work well, add the rest. Just check it daily at first and set up some sort of monitoring.

Neil
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  • I think it might be hard to do SPF records, as when forwarding email, the from address stays the same as the original sender. – potato123 Nov 11 '15 at 05:56
  • You can also specify trusted servers/relays in the SPF records – Neil Nov 11 '15 at 05:59
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I realise I won't have the expertise to handle spam or large loads or email, but as I'm forwarding straight onto a reliable email service, is this still an issue?

Yes. Without a spam filtering on your relay, you will also forward spam mails to gmail. This will lead to temporary blocking on their side.

  • Am I really getting in too deep?
  • What other problems might I face?

You will have to setup a Sender Rewrite Scheme (SRS) daemon to rewrite the Sender. Using simple aliases for forwarding won't change the sender's address to one belonging to you. Thus gmail will notice you are sending mails in behalf of others', thus you are sending pure "spam".

So yes, you need to grapple with mail servers and protocols.

sebix
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