this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
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Self Hosted - Self-hosting your services.

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Does any one have good resources for getting into self hosting Email? I prefer written resources over video ones this seems to be one of the better things I found: https://youtu.be/6SfXXtb-nHM

I know email hosting is a pain in the ass and I know there are out of the box solutions, I'm just bored and want to try.

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[–] JRaccoon@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The "easy" route is to use Mailcow. It spins up the entire mail stack as Docker containers and only requires minimal configuring and is easy to keep updated. You'll still need to properly set all the required DNS records (like SPF, DKIM, DMARC) if you want others to actually receive your mail and not treat it as spam. But Mailcow has a UI that helps with most of the records you'll need to set.

If you're doing it just as a learning experience, you could go for configuring Postfix, Dovecot etc. manually. The last time I did it, I used this tutorial as a base. It's not fully up to date, but it can still serve as a solid starting point.

[–] alibloke@feddit.uk 3 points 2 weeks ago

Mailcow is excellent!

[–] tvcvt@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Michael Lucas released a stellar book on the subject not long ago (https://www.tiltedwindmillpress.com/product/ryoms/). It’s pretty thorough, relatively up-to-date, and (like all his stuff) a fun read. It does a great job of demystifying the mechanics. As far as the implementation goes, I’ll put in another vote for Mailcow, which combines all of the components into a very usable docker stack.

[–] Pissed@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Hey I saw it, any idea where I can get a PDF to just check it out?

[–] tvcvt@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 weeks ago

Not sure about a PDF, but he sells an epub that’s $15 US.

[–] Piranha@piaille.fr 4 points 2 weeks ago
[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] honesthenery@thelemmy.club 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

https://maps.gardiol.org/ Dang Willy you travel a lot. Thanks for the share.

[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 1 points 2 weeks ago

Ahahahah i used to. Then life, family and new hobbies happened.

[–] dihutenosa@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 1 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah. I think this is one of the best examples of letting nix do the hard stuff for you.

[–] SirHaxalot@nord.pub 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I’ve set up a https://stalw.art/ server recently, and I’m quite impressed. I appreciate that the entire mail service stack is taken care of by a single unified service, except webmail but Bulwark seems really solid. It also works nicely together with Postgres and S3, so I can have the same backup strategy as most other apps I’m hosting.

First and foremost for the outgoing needs of https://nord.pub/, but I’m seriously considering moving personal domains to it as well.

For infrastructure I’m using dedicated Hetzner hosts, with extra IPs for the mail servers, so that reverse DNS is consistent.

Largest problem I’ve seen is that Outlook.com is classifying the emails as spam, even with SOF, DKIM, DMARC properly set up… which is a big reason I’m hesitant to move all personal email as well. I realised that it could be a problem if I ever want to contact companies who use Office 365, which is a lot.

[–] erebion@news.erebion.eu 2 points 2 weeks ago

I can't recommend Stalwart enough.

It also does CalDAV and CardDAV and some other things... But even JMAP, which is like IMAP, but modern and not as weird.

Ltt.rs supports it on Android, it's a lot faster and works well. Author is the same as for Conversations, THE Android XMPP client.

Stalwart is simple to set up and works reliably.

[–] honesthenery@thelemmy.club 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

All these..... I am not self hosting at home though... I am using a Conatabo VPS.... The vid you linked seems helpful too

https://tonyteaches.tech/mailcow-self-hosted-email-server/

https://mxtoolbox.com/

https://docs.mailcow.email/getstarted/prerequisite-dns/#references

How to set Reverse DNS (rDNS/PTR record) in Contabo server https://youtu.be/clPJqoIxCjs