It’s been a while since I’ve attempted to use YunoHost. After seeing there was a new release I thought I would set it up as a test.
During DNS setup I see that the recommended configuration is to have the server name be the top level domain and for the mx to point to the top level domain as well. This has implications for anyone who would like to leave an existing web server on the top level domain for instance.
I’m curious if anyone knows the reasoning behind these choices and what the implications would be for the server setup to go with a more conventional configuration where the server has a name in the domain like server.company.com.
Are things architected in such a way where this would break services and cause apps not to function because they are expecting the server to be company.com?
Is this configuration choice something that might be changed in the future for flexibility sake or is it likely to stay this way due to the difficulty in making such a change?
I don’t think this matters much for my testing purposes or for someone who can easily run all their basic services on one server, but most of the organizations I’ve dealt with tend to have email and web service separated at least.
A common thing I’ve seen is having a wordpress site on it’s own server or a hosting provider and the email/calendar, and file sharing on their own box(es). I’m sure there are options for working around this through forwarding or proxy, etc., but I think it would be cleaner to leave the main domain record to point to the web service, but maybe I’m just operating from past experience and missing some perspective. It’s always been a basic part of my mental model that servers have a name which isn’t the TLD.
For context, how long ago / which version was it that you have used Yunohost last time?
I may misunderstand your question, but if you now install Yunohost, I think your concerns may be addressed.
Mail can be enabled/disabled on a per-domain basis. This is about public facing mail services; housekeeping mail (cron, diagnosis, etc) are sent to users belonging to the admin group.
So, if you like to run Yunohost services at yuhohost.domain.tld, but have another server deal with mail for domain.tld, you turn off mail for the domain yunohost.domain.tld.
I have some yunohosts that run at yunohost1.domain.tld or at yunohost2.domain.tld, and also a yunohost that serves yunohost3.domain.tld and domain.tld, as well as domain2.tld.
There is a similar thread, my understanding is that in that case,
a VPS running at yunohost.domain.tld acts as mailserver for
a homeserver running at domain.tld ;
@samuel-ynh added domain.tld to his VPS as well as having it configured at his homeserver, but selectively set DNS records (only MX, to not disturb DNS for his homeserver). This way, all functionality provided by having domain.tld configured, such as mailbox and alias management, is available at the VPS, while the actual server that runs the domain has nothing to do with mail handling. Some tweaks are needed to have this running smoothly, see his helpful post for details.
My last experience was quite a few years ago, but I don’t remember the last version.
My goal was to have everything on YunoHost except web. You did give me a good suggestion about a second domain, and I think I could make that work, but having gone through testing of SOGo and getting email working I have run into an issue with ActiveSync.
It seems there is a older bug report that hung around for a while but it looks like it was closed because someone doesn’t like ActiveSync and it doesn’t seem to play well with the way the integration works.
I think given the way things are put together and the apparent difficulties related to app integration and fixes, etc. it will probably be better for me to go with some sort of containerized setup.
I like the idea of YunoHost and the execution is really quite good, but unfortunately with tech stuff it often comes down to just a few quibbles that really make or break the experience.