SMTP-friendly VPS provider where I can also get a BGP feed

Tue Sep 26 17:12:56 UTC 2023

That is extremely good and important advice! It seemed much less 
pertinent back when I was in my 30's, but planning for the unexpected 
is, or should be, a key part of all our jobs.

Jim Shankland

On 9/26/23 10:01 AM, Mel Beckman wrote:
> One thing you should consider about running a "family" mail server (or 
> any other IT services for friends and family): that you have a clearly 
> documented path of management succession. A dear friend of mine passed 
> away  last year and was running just such an email server. Nobody 
> really knew how to get into it for maintenance, and a couple weeks 
> after he passed. it crashed, and none of us knew precisely where it 
> was physically located (on the end of a VPN tunnel, it tuns out). This 
> took down email for 100 of his closest friends and family members for 
> several weeks. We couldn't even unlock the domain,
>
> Personally, this has spurred me to create much better documentation 
> of  my own client services, and to involve a successor unlikely to be 
> traveling with me 🙂
>
>  -mel
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* NANOG <nanog-bounces+mel=beckman.org at nanog.org> on behalf of 
> Jim Shankland via NANOG <nanog at nanog.org>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 26, 2023 9:46 AM
> *To:* nanog at nanog.org <nanog at nanog.org>
> *Subject:* Re: SMTP-friendly VPS provider where I can also get a BGP feed
> I've been using Linode, also; works fine on the Linode end, but I still
> see occasional rejections based on my Linode IP address (most recently
> from outlook.com). It's nothing my specific IP is doing, but appears to
> be blacklisting of an address range. And gmail randomly puts some
> outgoing mail into recipients' spam folders. Trying to get an address
> unblocked by a major provider works almost as well as howling into the 
> wind.
>
> Maybe I'm being stubborn to insist on continuing to run what's basically
> a family mail server, but it does seem like there's a matter of
> principle there: it should be possible to have an email account without
> having all the emails stored by a third party. If the answer ends up
> being, "Oh, just use gmail, everybody else does!" ... well, so be it, I
> guess, but we should be clear that something got lost in that transition.
>
> Jim Shankland
>
> On 9/26/23 9:10 AM, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> > I've run a mail server on Linode for 6 or 7 years now; no technical 
> problems.
> >
> > End-node, Zimbra, postfix.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > -- jra
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "Jonathan Leist via NANOG" <nanog at nanog.org>
> >> To: "Daniel Corbe" <daniel at corbe.net>
> >> Cc: nanog at nanog.org
> >> Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2023 10:32:51 AM
> >> Subject: Re: SMTP-friendly VPS provider where I can also get a BGP feed
> >> Pretty much every popular provider blocks port 25 out by default, and
> >> they'll instead try to steer customers to use a smart host. 
> However, some,
> >> including Linode, will unblock port 25 by request:
> >> 
> https://www.linode.com/docs/guides/running-a-mail-server/#sending-email-on-linode
> >>
> >> On Tue, Sep 26, 2023 at 6:11 AM Daniel Corbe <daniel at corbe.net> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hey all,
> >>>
> >>> I apologize if this isn't the right place to post this; however, I
> >>> thought maybe the NANOG community would be able to point me in the 
> right
> >>> direction.
> >>>
> >>> I'm looking for a place that I can host a mailer.  My primary use case
> >>> is a Mailman-style technical discussion list; much like NANOG but
> >>> software related instead of network related: READ: non-commercial in
> >>> nature.
> >>>
> >>> I'm currently a vultr customer, but they're refusing to unblock 
> port 25
> >>> on my account.  I've tried explaining my use case but no matter who I
> >>> talk to over there they just keep pointing me to their spam policy.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks!
> >>> -Daniel
> >>>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Jonathan Leist
> >> Staff Engineer
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