Hello,
I want to deploy a simple mail server so that it can be used for users to register themselves or reset passwords, etc.
Is there an easy one to deploy (in docker if possible) ?
You are asking for a world of pain here.
As already mentioned several times, selfhosting a mail server is not recommended unless you’re particularly interested in hosting a mail server, but with that said, you might find this project interesting:
don’t.
Please, just don’t. It’s pain in ass
There is Mailcow. But simple is relative I guess cause you still gotta configure a lot around it to not end up on every spamlist out there
Dmarc/dkim/SPF/certs. Fun times!
I got a mall server running, yet it’s almost more as an inbox.
I once came to the conclusion that there is no easy mail server
If you need to throw in the towel on email self-hosting, don’t be ashamed. Mail servers are one of the more difficult projects to run. If you do end up outsourcing this, I recommend SendGrid, it’s reliable and free.
I agree with everyone here that self-hosting email is never easy, but if you still decide to go down this route then here are two tips that I personally found very helpful, especially when you decide to host it at home:
The first is to get an SMTP relay server. That’s just another mail server that yours can log into to actually send its mail, just like an email client would. That way you don’t have to worry about your IP’s sending reputation, because everyone will only see the relay’s reputable IP.
Second is to configure a Backup MX. That’s an additional MX DNS entry with lower priority than the primary, and it points to a special mail server that accepts any mail for you and tries to deliver it to the primary server forever (or something like an entire week). So when your primary server is unreachable other sending servers will deliver mail to the backup, and it delivers the mail to the primary as soon as that’s back online.
You can get these as separate services, but some DNS providers (like Strato for example) offer both with the base domain package. It makes self-hosting an email server much simpler and more reliable in my experience.
Interesting how you use “simple” and “mail server” in the same sentence.
I self host my email. It was hard work to set up. 0/10. Would not come again.
I second this comment. It’s been a long time since I set one up and it was a pain. And from what I can tell it’s only gotten harder.
This is a can of worms, but you’re probably looking for something like Postfix. Running your own mail server is complicated. You need to set up SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and make sure outbound traffic on port 25 isn’t blocked. You need to check if your IP is on any block lists. You can do that here:
you could try mailu. that should be simple and Provide you with everything You need
This tool is for your use case. It comes with bonus privacy features like unique address for each service so they can’t cross track you
SimpleLogin is for mail aliasing, not transactional mail.
I would not go down the route of doing it myself. Take a look at something like: migadu if it is simple mail hosting you are looking for.
Migadu is great but they state in their policy that automated (non-human) outgoing email like for password resets are not allowed.
Yeah, you a right. Didn’t read that requirement carefully enough.