Apparently, when you have a dynamic IP address belonging to a residential IP block and you run an email server, providers will drop your email messages. And you can easily be into the denial lists of the Big Tech as spam.
I would like to know the methods to avoid or solve the problem and their results.
I think the approach of YunoHost documentation is to run your email server without any networking modification and send some complaint forms when you want to be removed from the denial lists.
I have read in different places that this is a slow and painful process. What is your experience?
I have also read a way to avoid the problem: proxy through another SMTP server you trust. Do you know anything about this method?
I can also think of a VPN as a possible solution, but have never heard of it. Do you know about any VPN that solves this problem?
Some ISP would not allow you to run your email server (I mean, they’d just block the port 25) but some other would.
the first thing is to check whether it’s possible with you ISP.
If not, the VPN is indeed a solution that work, only if you can redirect ports from the VPN server to your yunohost server.
Personnally, I installed a VPN server on a VPS (that I rent for 3-4€ a month) so I can have a full control (port redirection, which VPN software i’ll be using, etc).
And it works quite well : No black list, no funny business, nothing wrong.
If you need any kind of guidance to achieve that, just ask.
That’s really good news, it sounds like the solution I was looking for!
How long have you had it running?
Do you have a static public address for that price?
Would you -or anyone else- recommend any VPS provider (as cheap as that one, if possible)?
Anyone else has had any similar or different experience?
But the way, my ISP doesn’t block port 25, but I guess that won’t get me out of fighting with Big Tech spam denial lists at some time. I am looking for a reliable solution.
I have been running this for a bit more than a year.
No trouble.
Yes I do have a static address.
The VPS provider is OVH, it’s based in France but you can choose among different locations.
But before going for this option you should definitely check to run the email server without VPN bacuase it might work and you would not necesseraly end up into the spamm blacklists of the BigTech.
Hey @ljf and @charly, thank you very much for your answers! Sorry, I have not had time to test anything yet.
I will definitely check the diagnosis tool, rDNS and SPF before going for any VPN setup. I guess I will have to do my tests with a test domain name, just in case it ends up in a denial list.
If everything is ok, and the email server starts working ok (with no VPN seup), could we consider this self-hosted email server as reliable?
How likely is it that sooner or later there will be a problem with one of those denial lists?
@ljf Do you use the Yunohost email server without VPN? For how long? Have you had any problem?
I hope I can do my tests before this thread gets automatically closed… Thanks again for your answers!
As long as you don’t spamm the world you should not end up into the spamm section of anyone.
I’m running my email server for more than a year I none of my email ended in a spamm folder so far.