Anyone do email hosting?

Paul_Rosser

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Jul 5, 2012
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Build your own windows mail server at home or in the office. All you need to do is modify the MX record and mail record on the website control panel :) http://www.hmailserver.com/

Great advice if your office has the same setup as a data centre, multiple lines out of the building, dual fed power etc

If not then you can't guarantee uptime then this will result in emails bouncing.
 
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you dont need that at all... I have ran my mail server off a broadband adsl line 3 meg down 980 up with no issues. Yes the broadband went down once and the mail stacked up but delivered when repaired. If you dont have a static ip address on your internet connection dyndns is what you need.
 
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Paul_Rosser

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Jul 5, 2012
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you dont need that at all... I have ran my mail server off a broadband adsl line 3 meg down 980 up with no issues. Yes the broadband went down once and the mail stacked up but delivered when repaired. If you dont have a static ip address on your internet connection dyndns is what you need.

Stacked up where ? If you change your MX record to point directly at a server and thats not available then it can only stack on the senders email server if it's set for multiple retries, if not then it will bounce.

Even when the senders mail server is set to retry they usually expire after 24/48 hours meaning it will then bounce.
 
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Paul_Rosser

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correct. But rarely happens.. What i was saying you could have your own mail server at no cost. And has more up time than a shared hosting company.

You can, but you have to factor in things like power cuts, server outages (planned and unplanned), ADSL going down etc

The safest route if you want to do this is to also sign up for somone like messagelabs/postini etc as they will provide email scanning and also cache emails should your server go down.
 
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You can, but you have to factor in things like power cuts, server outages (planned and unplanned), ADSL going down etc

The safest route if you want to do this is to also sign up for somone like messagelabs/postini etc as they will provide email scanning and also cache emails should your server go down.

The up time of your connection at home or work is probably better than 95% of shared hosting providers 50% better than a VPS Server and 5% than a dedicated server. So for the cost versus up time, running you own mail server would be better.

We have ran ours since 2005. I have customers that would rather use my mail server than any they have used.
 
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Paul_Rosser

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The up time of your connection at home or work is probably better than 95% of shared hosting providers 50% better than a VPS Server and 5% than a dedicated server. So for the cost versus up time, running you own mail server would be better.

We have ran ours since 2005. I have customers that would rather use my mail server than any they have used.

Depends on the provider really, if you try and do it on the cheap then probably right. If you go with a proper provider then you will get at least 99.99% uptime, but they do cost more.

Comes down to how important emails are to you, if you can manage a 1/2 day outage due to BT having an issue with ADSL, a power cut etc then not a problem, if not then you get what you pay for.
 
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KM-Tiger

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Even when the senders mail server is set to retry they usually expire after 24/48 hours meaning it will then bounce.

Very few MTAs do not retry. If they didn't retry then greylisting as an anti-spam measure would not work, and it does. Typically retries will persist for at least 5 days, though often with an increasing interval between, which leads to the characteristic "out of order" delivery of email following an outage.

Perfectly feasible to run an MTA on the end of a broadband connection. I have done for the last ten years, and maintain mail servers for a number of clients, also on broadband connections.

But whether it is a good recommendation for the OP, I would doubt. Without experience, an MTA is hard to configure correctly.
 
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Paul_Rosser

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Jul 5, 2012
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London and Essex
Very few MTAs do not retry. If they didn't retry then greylisting as an anti-spam measure would not work, and it does. Typically retries will persist for at least 5 days, though often with an increasing interval between, which leads to the characteristic "out of order" delivery of email following an outage.

Perfectly feasible to run an MTA on the end of a broadband connection. I have done for the last ten years, and maintain mail servers for a number of clients, also on broadband connections.

But whether it is a good recommendation for the OP, I would doubt. Without experience, an MTA is hard to configure correctly.


Maybe we are talking about different sized firms, all of the email hosting I have ever setup had to provide at least 99.99% uptime and it's written into all the contracts with clients.

Maybe at the smaller end of the scale clients who are looking for cheaper solutions are happier to take the risk of email being down due to a broadband outage, power cut etc

And whilst some MTA's are happy to retry emails for a number of days before finally failing, at the enterprise end of the market clients expect their emails to be delivered at least within 30 minutes of them being sent.

Like with most things you get what you pay for, if you want cheap email/webhosting there are lots of firms who will offer this to you. Or if you want a more stable, reliable service then you have to pay more.
 
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SourChocolate

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Jul 31, 2008
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And configure....

pop3/imap/ActiveSync
DKIM
SPF
SMTP
firewall
Anti-Spam
Anti-virus
routing
rDNS
Host name
SMTP Auth
SSL/TLS

Then regularly apply updates, monitor usage, break in attempts.... What in case of a hardware failure?

Proper setup and maintenance is a full time job, so saying "no cost" is simply ridiculous.
Total cost for self hosted solution is exceeds outsourced service by a mile.
Note the above does not apply to hobbyists and those who operate on a shoe string or are happy with the risk of the service being down for some time.
 
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