Running a home email server in 2021

My Story

Nowadays, it is unhurd of to be running your own email server, mainly due to the high demand for security and high availability. Also, services such as Microsoft 365 and Google GSuite are so cheap now that it is a no-brainer to go with them.

I remember back in the day when all small businesses had their own email servers. This was mainly due to Microsoft’s Small Business Server being so affordable and simple to use. But nowadays, security is such an important aspect to consider. We live in spam and the scam-filled world when at every opportunity someone is trying to steal your money or identity. For this reason, everyone normally trusts a cloud provider.

I am no exeption to this. Apart from running my own business. I very much enjoy having my own domains for email use. Firstly I was a subscriber to GSuite for many years. I used Google Mail (with my own domain) and even Google Drive. But Microsoft seemed to have the upper hand with the then ‘Office 365’ product. The features and apps in 365 are by far better than GSuite. So I moved to GSuite. Mainly because on top of the £7 per month I was paying for two mailboxes I also had to pay £70 per year for extra storage. At the time of renewal, I decided to move to 365. For the same monthly price, I got 1TB of storage standard, so overall it cost less.

Recently, my circumstances have changed and I am downsizing the business, so to minimize costs, I have chosen to move to an on-premises solution.

Considarations for running your own server

Before you even think about moving any data. Here is what you need to considar first.

Volume
Considar how much main traffic is going to be moving around your network. Do you have the bandwidth for this? Incoming mail uses very little traffic in small volumes, but think about accessing your mail externally. If you have family or staff members accessing their mail externally on devices, this can add an extra load to your home or business broadband line. Most broadband lines can handel it these days though. But it is important to considar.

Hardware
You are going to have to have a machine running 24/7 to make sure that your mail is flowing in. In many cases you should choose sutable hardware with some basic redudency in mind. I am not saying you need to use server hardware, but it is recomended as this is designed to run 24/7.

Technology
What email system are you going to use? There are many different mail servers out there, but to be honest with you there are 3 main contenders. Microsoft Exchange is probably the most widely use on-premise solution, but it does have a rather large licensing cost so we could rule this one out. hMailServer is a very strong candidate as it is free and can run on any Windows operating system, not just server operating systems. Postfix and Dovecot is another strong solution as it is open-sourced (free), but it does have a large administrative overhead. Different solutions also offer more or less features.

SMTP Relaying (smart-host)
if your ISP is like mine and denys any mail server on your network from sending, you may want to consider using an SMTP relay. In fact, I am going to strongly recommend using one. These services normally cost a small amount of money per year. But offer to take your outgoing mail and send it from a trusted place. Services such as Prolateral’s OutMail is very affordable solutions for this. In fact, if your sending less than 10 emails per day, it is free.

Security
You should consider adding some extra security to your server. Some solutions such as Microsoft Exchange 2019, have some built-in anti-spam and anti-malware, but you may want to consider adding some more. I myself use AVG Email Server Security. However, there are some services that you can direct your incoming mail to before it is delivered to your server, but these normally cost a lot.

Backup
Depending on how important you considar your mail, you may or should considar a backup option, some technologies offer a solution to this. But if you do have a backup in-place, it is important to test it.

Testing
Once you have a working mail server, spend a week or two testings it before you roll it out. There is nothing worse than using a dogy server and missing mail.

Static IP
If you are using a domestic broadband line, the chances are you are not going to get a static IP. But this is ok. You can use a dynamic DNS provider like No-IP

What did I do?

So I decided to run with an existing licences that I have for Microsoft Windows Server 2019 and Exchange 2019. Mainly because my history with the products and the ease of administation.

So I started off installing Server 2019 on my HP Prolient Ml310 G8e. Once the OS is installed, configured it and ran the updates until I was blue in the face.

Once the OS was installed, I added active directory to the server, as exchange needs it. Then I ran the exchange install. I am not going to go into the entire exchange install because it is long, tedious and there is 100s of tutorials out there.

Once installed, I configured my mailboxes and my prolateral smart host. I then added my AVG email security and it was all working. Then onto testing. Once my portforwarding and domains was added it was rolling.

Here is a full list of what I have:

• HP Prolient ML310 G8e (Hardware) with 16GB RAM, 4x 500GB hard drives in RAID 10.
• Windows Server 2019 Standard (OS)
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 Standard (Mail server software)
• Prolateral OutMail 50 (Smart Host)
• AVG Email Server Business Edition (security)
• No-IP (Dynamic DNS)
• domain name from 1and1 IONOS

What does it cost?

Below is a table showing my costings, if I didn’t have the hardware and licences laying around.

Item	Description	One-off payment	Price per month	Price per year
Windows Server 2019 Standard	Server OS	£657.99	£0	£0
Exchange 2019 Standard	Mail Server	£708.31	£0	£0
HP Prolient ML310 G8e	Hardware	£150	£0	£0
Prolateral MailOut 50	Smart host	£0	£0	£18
AVG Email Server Security	Security Software	£0	£0	£12
TOTALS:		£1,516.3	£0	£30

Yes £1,500 is quite a scary number for starting out, but this is using Microsoft software. You could easily get similar features at a cheaper price. For example here is the same solution with hMailServer.

Item	Description	One-off payment	Price per month	Price per year
Windows 10	Server OS	£93	£0	£0
hMailServer	Mail Server	£0	£0	£0
HP Prolient ML310 G8e	Hardware	£150	£0	£0
Prolateral MailOut 50	Smart host	£0	£0	£18
Spam Assasin	Security Software	£0	£0	£0
TOTALS:		£243	£0	£18

Here is the same solution using Postfix

Item	Description	One-off payment	Price per month	Price per year
Debian	Server OS	£0	£0	£0
Postfix & Dovecot	Mail Server	£0	£0	£0
HP Prolient ML310 G8e	Hardware	£150	£0	£0
Prolateral MailOut 50	Smart host	£0	£0	£18
Spam Assasin	Security Software	£0	£0	£0
TOTALS:		£150	£0	£18

Now yets compare it to 5 user on 365:

Item	Description	Price each	Qty	total per month
Microsoft 365 Business Essentials	Cloud Mailbox	£4.56	5	£22.80
Total per year				£273.60

Conclusion

Well the numbers speak for themself. If you have the skills to run your own server, then it might be worth it, but 365 is a very cheap option.

Microsoft Server Applications, Software, Tech

April 22, 2021