Running own servers

[Danny MacMillan]

On Wed, Dec 22, 2004 at 07:09:43AM -0500, Louis LeBlanc wrote:
> 
> ...
> 
> As for rejected email, I just have zoneedit act as the lowest priority
> MX for my domains and anytime something can't get sent to my system
> because I've been renumbered, zoneedit will spend up to 10 days trying
> to relay it in - which usually turns into a matter of a couple hours
> at most, since they find out where I am pretty quick.
> 
> I've been using zoneedit for longer than I can remember - since my 4.3
> install at least, with both cable/DHCP and DSL/PPP, and the only time
> I ever know I've been renumbered is when I check my logs.  I don't get
> reports of email that I never received either.

Another option for e-mail, that I'm just investigating myself, is to
use an ODMR (on-demand mail relay) service like MailKeep
( http://www.mailkeep.com ).  I just set up a 30 day free trial account
with them.  I set up my domain on their site, identified them as my
primary MX, and initiated an ODMR transfer with fetchmail.  I have it
set up to do 'direct SMTP', which means that if my mail server is up
mail is delivered immediately.

The benefit of a service like this is that you tell it what your mail
server says in its banner, and if it doesn't see that text it won't
deliver the mail (it stays queued on their server).  That way it won't
accidentally deliver your mail to someone else.  The way that you
tell it what your mail server IP is is by initiating an ODMR session
with your username and password, which you have to do at least once
a day, again as a verification measure so it's "really sure" it's
delivering mail to the right party.  That's easily cron-able.

It is a pay service but it's much more reasonable than a static IP (at
least in my area), and if you don't like taking the gamble that you're
going to lose mail it may be worth it to you.

-- 
Danny