Best mail setup for home server?

[Daniel Staal]

--As of May 5, 2012 10:21:10 AM -0500, Joshua Isom is alleged to have said:

> I currently use my FreeBSD system as my generic unix server and some
> coding, along with occasional multimedia.  I'd installed postfix years
> ago and kept using it.  Right now, I use getmail with cron, dspam, and
> dovecot to handle my gmail account.  I've never set up outgoing mail
> which makes changing email clients, or devices, annoying.  Currently
> postfix is set to use dovecot's deliver command so that dovecot can sort
> and handle it.  Before I deal with setting postfix to relay the mail,
> dealing with firewalls and other possible issues, is there a better
> alternative?  I'd prefer that local mail "just works" even if I lose
> internet, and any email that gets as far as my server will at least
> eventually mail.

--As for the rest, it is mine.

I've been using Postfix for a decade to do basically this; no major 
problems, and it doesn't take much to set up.  No reason to go to something 
else.  (Even for speed: I've used it for work on a site handling millions 
of messages a day...)

As has been said, a local resolver will help.  The thing to watch for is 
what mail you'll let it accept: It's moderately easy to set it up as an 
open relay, which you *don't* want to do.  Accept from the local network is 
fine; I've never needed to set up authenticated sending from outside that, 
though I keep meaning to when I have some free time...

The dynamic IP problem can be a hassle, and lead to weird losses of mail. 
My solution has just been to call the ISP and get a 'business' line, with a 
static IP, though forwarding to their mail relay would work as well.

Daniel T. Staal

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