Re: how many Linux machines do you run?

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Tim here.

I've winnowed down my collection of Linux computers mostly because
I've migrated usage to a mix of FreeBSD and OpenBSD.  That said,
they're similar enough that hopefully my answers will be useful.

I host my own email but it's a non-trivial task.  *receiving* email
isn't so bad, but there are a *lot* of hoops to jump through in
order to send email without the mail-monopolies flagging it as spam
or outright rejecting it.  You need your DNS set correctly, your
reverse-DNS set correctly (not all ISPs/providers will do this for
you), you need to set your SPF and DKIM correctly in your DNS as
well as properly configure your DKIM certificates in your mail-server
(and have them renew regularly), and a clean IP address (it might
even depend on your netblock neighbors' behavior).

I run OpenSMTP+Dovecot on it so my beloved can connect via IMAP/SMTP
from her Chromebook/phone, but for my own mail-reading I mostly
just SSH into the machine where I have tmux running and access my
mail folders directly on the VPS (I use mutt, but alpine or aerc
would work too).

So for the common (not super-geeky) person, I'm a pretty big advocate
of outsourcing your mail (at least the sending part) to companies
that will handle these headaches for you.

That said, the hardware requirements for hosting email are pretty
negligible.  I have a ~$5/mo VPS instance with 2GB of RAM and it
is more than sufficient for my email and website.  Storage would
need to be commensurate with your usage.  But my mail-server has
~30GB of space and my personal mail archive is under 1GB.  For just
mail, you could get by with hardware specs comparable to a Raspberry
Pi because the requirements are low.  Unfortunately, if you start
dipping into the lower-priced VPS instances (like the $3/mo), you
often encounter sullied IP-addresses/blocks where others have used
them for spamming, or the provider bans outgoing email (for that
reason) so it's a crapshoot.

A quick tally around the house turns up 4 OpenBSD laptops and two
FreeBSD laptops (most are hand-me-down hardware) in addition to the
two OpenBSD and one FreeBSD VPS instances as well as one Raspberry
Pi which runs whatever OS I put on the SD cards.  Most of the laptops
ran Linux at one point but have since been swapped out for BSDs.

If you're venturing into running your own Linux (or BSD) machine
at home, I encourage you to try and obtain dedicated hardware so
you can experiment and repave it as often as you need.  As you can
tell, I like hand-me-down hardware for playing around.

-tim




On 2024-07-14 23:45, Karen Lewellen wrote:
> Hi all,
>  many times I have shared that my entire Linux experience is tied to shell
> services.  Dreamhost for my  employer, shellworld for  both my personal
> site, and an account with them.
> Because shellworld is still refusing to incorporate current email demands
> for ptr records  for host names, I am wondering how others manage their
> Linux experience.
> If Your host your own email, have the equal of a Linux shell with several
> browsers and convert tools and so forth.
> Do you use a single dedicated computer,  different hard drives, external USB
> drives, or partitions of a large drive?
> Aside from educating me, perhaps learning how uniquely one can run Linux
> might help others new to the concept.
> So, how does your Linux garden grow?
> Kare
> 
> 

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