[tor-talk] Private mail server (Was: i saw your response on the Tor talk list)

[Andrea Shepard]

On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 07:06:32PM +0100, Andreas Krey wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Nov 2012 17:41:12 +0000, Julian Yon wrote:
> ...
> > or dedicated server, or colocate a machine of your own in a datacentre.
> > While in theory you could run a server off a cable or DSL line, I
> > wouldn't recommend it. Even if your ISP is friendly towards the idea
> > they're unlikely to guarantee you the uptime you need for a reliable
> > service.
> 
> Don't think that regular colo/VPS server promise much more. The main
> problem on cable/DSL is the usual lack of an actually fixed address.

Keep in mind that colo/rent-a-server and cable/DSL at home aren't
the only possibilities; I run my own mail server on a machine located
in my home and have done so since about 2000 - since 2005 it's been on a T1
circuit with a 99.99% SLA, which has worked flawlessly, and before that it
was variously on ADSL with static IP and dorm-room ethernet back before
filtering such things got very common.

With consumer-targeted internet service dynamic addresses can be a problem,
but IIRC it's usually possible to get a static one or use dynamic DNS.
Port-filtering and weird traffic shaping is the real problem; I've been
refusing to deal with such and insisting on spending for the T1 ever since
an unpleasant encounter with an ISP that blocked outgoing TCP port 22.

> > Never mind that it'll be your home the police are sniffing
> > around if you're doing anything illegal with it.
> 
> ...
> > at your server. If you only have the one server, then you'll only need
> > one record, but if your server is down or unreachable then other
> > servers will probably either bounce or blackhole incoming mail.
> 
> Servers doing the former deserve to be walked away from (to another
> provider), and admins of servers doing the latter are criminals,
> at least in my local jurisdiction.

*boggle* criminal prosecutions for one's mail server configuration?
Remind me to stay well clear of your jurisdiction.

> > They're under no obligation to queue it for you.
> 
> Yes, they are. At least that is what every sane mail server does.
> (Given the insane state of the world this doesn't say much.)
> 
> [Actually, the server whose obligation to queue in case my MX is down
>  is being paid for by the person sending the mail.]

In practice, on the few downtime events I have had with power outages or
machine problems and such, I've mostly not had problems with servers not
queueing and resending, but I have seen some mailing lists give up on
delivering to my account and had to unsub/resub.

> Well yes; I still like my mail directly appear in my inbox (even though
> I admin that I need to poll this address).
> 
> Andreas

Yes, local mail spool is nice, and so is being able to just write one's
own .procmailrc.

-- 
Andrea Shepard
<andrea at torproject.org>
PGP fingerprint: 3611 95A4 0740 ED1B 7EA5  DF7E 4191 13D9 D0CF BDA5
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