[TriLUG] recommendations for on-line Linux VM

[Matt Pusateri via TriLUG]

I got tired of all the hassle of running my own mail server and trying to combat spam, etc.  Plus it was at my old work and it was hard to get in when it went down on a weekend which it did several times due to their infrastructure.  So 3-4 years ago I moved my email domain to Fastmail and for $5/mnth it’s well worth it. They’re spam filtering is pretty good, I only have one company I can’t send to, and that just started, I just switched to emailing the guy on his personal account, it’s not business related anyways. At the time I moved to Fastmail, it was cheaper than ProtonMail hosting, though I’d explore both if you were looking for email hosting.  I keep my domain and I don’t have any of the hassle, well worth it.

V/R,
Matt P.

> On Feb 22, 2025, at 2:40 PM, Alan Porter via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> Thanks, Lance, for the tip on DuoCircle!
> 
> I run two Linodes, with web and email services on both.  One of them
> is for personal stuff, and the other one is for paying customers.
> 
> I also set up TriLUG's email on pilot back in 2009.
> https://alanporter.com/blog/2009-03-01/pwn3d
> 
> On all of those systems, outgoing email has been a hassle.  For the
> most part, it works.  But there are always a few recipient domains that
> just refuse to accept email from me, even though I have had the same
> IPs for a decade.  They're just in a bad neighborhood (Linode).
> 
> A month or so ago, I set up my personal mail server to relay selected
> emails through "SMTP2GO", another SMTP relay with a free 1000/mo tier.
> Today, I set up my professional server with DuoCircle, also on a free
> 1000/mo tier.  The difference is if I need to scale up, DuoCircle has
> smaller scale-up steps.
> 
> Both SMTP2GO and DuoCircle are pretty simple to use.
> 
> It DOES kind of feel like selling out.  But my other alternative was
> the BIG sell-out, migrating to GMail.  At least this way, I still run
> my own mail server, still control lots of mail aliases at my own domains,
> and I can choose which recipients get their email directly from me vs
> through this verified-clean relay service.
> 
> Alan
> 
> 
>> On 2025-02-18 09:57, Lance A. Brown via TriLUG wrote:
>> My personal email service has been a journey.  I've been with Lumos
>> (nee Northstate) at my current home since 2019 and really enjoy their
>> service.  I was running into problems delivering outbound mail
>> directly from my server at home, so I set up a relayhost to a linode
>> VPS.  That worked OK for a while but someone "near" my linode's IP
>> address damaged the reputation for at least one CIDR range including
>> my server's IP.  I fixed that by signing up for free outbound SMTP
>> relay from DuoCircle (https://www.duocircle.com/).  Now, my outbound
>> mail from my personal server at home and the mail service's I have
>> running on my linodes goes through them.  It took a bit to get SPF,
>> DKIM, and DMARC going properly and now I have almost zero problems
>> with outbound deliverability.
>> 
>> --[Lance]
> 
> 
> 
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