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?

  • @DidacticDumbassOPEnglish
    1•1 year ago

    Nice. That is way more emails than I ever deal with in a month. Maybe in a year. I am really conservative with my online stuff, mostly because I hated the idea of managing so much crap even if it is something I want.

    So, I am going to play with Mailcow, Mailinabox, and iRedMail.

    • @dan@upvote.auEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      Good choices! I also tried those three. Mailcow was my favourite but maybe you’ll like one of the other ones better. Mailcow uses Docker (which I prefer compared to installing software directly on the system) and has a nice admin panel. They’re all good choices though.

      • @DidacticDumbassOPEnglish
        1•1 year ago

        I keep saying it but I need to get familiar with docker, especially to run all other kinds of services.

        I guess I will try mailcow first.

        • @dan@upvote.auEnglish
          1•1 year ago

          You don’t need to know too much about Docker to use Mailcow. It comes with a preconfigured docker-compose.yml so you just need to install Docker and follow Mailcow’s installation instructions (which are pretty straightforward)

          If you have any spare domains that you aren’t using (or domains you’re not currently using email with), you could test it out with that domain before moving any domains you care about :) That’s what I did.

          • @DidacticDumbassOPEnglish
            2•1 year ago

            Right on. The first domain I will buy will be a personal fun one, just to experiment and mess around. I don’t quite know what professional name I want for my domain, since I don’t have a brand or anything, and having just my name seems odd.