All this new excitement with Lemmy and federation has got me thinking that maybe I should learn to run my own instance. What always comes up though is how email is the orginal federated technology.
I am looking at proxmox and see that is has a built in email server, so now I am wondering if it is time to role my own.
I stopped using gmail a long time ago, and right now I use ProtonMail, but I am super frustrated with the dumb limitation of only having a single account for the app. I get why they do it, and I am willing to pay, but it is pricey and I don’t know if that is my best option. I guess it is worth it since ProtonVPN is included. It looks like they are expanding their suite.
Is it worth it? Can I make it secure? Is it stupid to run it off a local computer on my home network?
Not likely worth it. Primary reason is that the large federated email services are skeptical of email from services such as your proposed self hosting solution and may simply not deliver the mail you send. This is to mitigate against spammers setting up bespoke servers.
There are a bunch of other things that could go wrong if you don’t set everything up perfectly, but even if you do, this would be a big problem.
Better off using a custom domain with a big provider. Fewer headaches. I like Fastmail, but many others are great too.
Thank you for the tip! Any advice on buying a domain name? It is something I should have done decades ago but was never sure about.
I have basically no web developmetnt experience, but perhaps that will force me to keep it simple. Get that old web style we all miss.
I would love to have my own website for personal web services, and eventually something professional. I just don’t want to overpay for something like Squarespace or whatever, and it seems dumb to not have full control.
I get all of mine through Hover.com. They also host email now but I’ve never used them for that (was with Fastmail before Hover launched that offering). There are many others of course!
Thanks for the tip! I will look into them.