this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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I know, many advise against it. But it does not matter, I just want to try, not (yet) host my important e-mails.

So it seems that by default port 25 is blocked by the internet service provider(s?). So I asked my provider to open it, and they answered that as per Trafi rule, port 25 is reserved for the ISP and the ISP only, not to be used by private consumers.

The customer service could only give me this link, which does not explain why this port or the others are blocked. I also lack the technical background to understand this decision.

Can someone explain to me? And are there ways around it without using a VPS? What is/are an association for the defense of digital rights here, that would have content in English?

Thank You!

edit: typo

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[–] IcedRaktajino@startrek.website 2 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

which does not explain why this port or the others are blocked. I also lack the technical background to understand this decision.

Don't take this the wrong way, but understanding the reason for that decision is pretty important if you're planning to run your own email server. A misconfigured email server (which is very easy to do) becomes a problem for everyone else when it inevitably gets used to spam. There's also a lot of ancillary things to configure correctly as well (DKIM, SPF, DMARC policies, spam filtering, etc) lest everything seems to work but no one is able to receive mail from you or it always ends up in their spam folder.

While I disagree with port 25 being permanently blocked on residential (and often even business-class) connections, I understand why in the grand scheme of things.

I don't read Finnish, but here are the general reasons why:

  1. Port 25 is for SMTP transport and typically only used for server-to-server (MTA) email traffic. This is unauthenticated between servers. Clients (MUAs) connect through a "submission" port which is pretty much expected to be authenticated/access-controlled. That's why you can send emails to an email provider but you can't be an email provider yourself. By blocking port 25, malicious people or people that have been compromised with malware cannot just blindly blast out spam email. This reduces spam considerably, though with a compromise of slightly restricting what a residential connection can be used for.

  2. Most big email providers universally block emails that originate from an IP address that's assigned to a residential IP/provider. Same reason as above. This means even if your ISP were to unblock port 25 for you, you likely wouldn't be able to send email to any major email provider (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, AOL, etc) as they would just sinkhole any messages you send to users there.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

Can you bypass that and host at home?

Yes, if you're willing to work for it. You can setup a VPS (cloud server) and port-forward across a VPN connection to your home server. Your DNS records for your email server would point to the VPS's IP, and the email server would need to be configured to use the VPS as its default route so all traffic goes in/out over the VPN connection. This is how my email server is configured.

Sounds easy enough, right? Well, good luck getting a VPS with a "clean" IP. Most VPSs you can get in public clouds are already on one or more public spam blocklists as well as many private/internal blocklists. You can clean up an IPs reputation and make it work with minimal to no delivery problems, but it's a LOT of work and often requires finding hidden forms to submit the request (Microsoft/Outlook was a brute, and I only found the link to the form in a forum post). I've cleaned up two IPs like that, and it took 2-3 weeks of work before I was able to get reliable delivery.

[–] Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I didn't mention it, but I understand that the reason behind is spam. That doesn't justify the straight up full ban for regular consumers, I think.

And "I lack some technical background" does not mean that I can't follow tutorials, install modoboa and set up DNS records and spam filters. It means I lack the provider's point of view.

Anyway, thanks for contributing.

[–] nabladabla@sopuli.xyz 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

IP addresses go together and even if your ISP didn't block port 25, other providers would still most probably have the whole IP block of your ISP marked as "residential, don't accept emails".

VPS or business ISP like suomicom are realistic options and the VPS route is going to be much cheaper.

[–] Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Having an extra VPS is not going to be cheaper since I already have email capable infrastructure. And I have read in Lemmy of people self-hosting email without issue. So it must be a reasonable expectation that it might be possible.

[–] nabladabla@sopuli.xyz 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

A VPS is usually cheaper than a business ISP subscription and you'll also have to already have a company or register a new one with PRH. I have a company and do most of services out of my home. You can't get any pricing without contacting sales, but for the same home even on the same DNA or Elisa or whatever their business side is going to be more expensive.

I'm not saying it's good. I'm in the same boat of paying for a VPS just for email and hosting everything else at home. Just knowing it's not right doesn't make it not be like that.

[–] Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

That's some valuable info. I would still like to know more about who took that decision, when and why, and what I can do about it / how can I express my concern.

[–] Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz 1 points 5 hours ago

Could be summarized by e.g. who should someone NOT vote for and is there a digital right association people can subscribe to.

[–] alzymologist@sopuli.xyz 1 points 19 hours ago

Hetzner gave me a clean ip with port 25 when I asked nicely. I thought as a lowcoster it would be badly abused, but no, order confirmations from my webshop just went through.

Still email is a silly gatekeeped legacy and is only good for communicated with people stuck with legacy. ActivityPub protocol has all email can do and more, minus gatekeeping.