[kwlug-disc] So, I took the plunge... Mail In A Box

[bob+kwlug at softscape.ca]

> You could run a MIAB at home if you have a company like Teksavvy which
> will give you a DSL based Static IP which is the only chance you'll have
> to run a SMTP/POP/IMAP/etc server at home.

I was looking to get the business cable from Teksavvy (since that's the only way you can get a static IP from them on a Cable service... via MLPPP!). I read through the terms of service since it would have been on a multiyear commitment and found that they block port 25, period. I called them to ask about that and the response I got was that port 25 and a few other mail transport related ones are blocked. No exceptions. I slammed the brakes on it since I was kinda on the fence for the service in the first place and it would primarily have been to self-host my email at home, so completely defeated the purpose. Went with a dedicated server at OVH instead.

This was at least a year ago, so YMMV now. I know this is slightly off-topic, but wanted to point that out so anyone thinking about this should pay attention to their ISP's TOS.


> I don't know anything about the ISP mail relays but maybe?  It would fall
> outside of my scope though because I would imagine that my ISP's email
> relay would cost more money and I'm already renting this VPS for a OpenVPN
> instance.

I suspect you could relay through any service you had an account with that allowed something like Auth-before-SMTP or authenticated SMTP. If you used a mail client on Gmail or o365 or whatever, this is how it would send mail out through them for relay. 

>From what I understand about smtp servers, you could even have special transports to override directly delivery from your server and instead use a relay for specific domains. This way you could say any @gmail.com addresses... use this special transport that would then be configured to authenticate the SMTP session and cause the provider to allow the relay.

BB