Fun & games with email hosting
I've recently been improving my self hosted email server for 3 (not for profit) domains - u3acommunities.org, u3a.social and plord.co.uk. This is a lot more challenging than it used to be !
ISP's seem to be dropping smarter hosts and commercial SMTP servers can quickly become expensive if you manage an email list for (free) events.
It also doesn't help if your ISP doesn't let you change the PTR record.
Basic issue with email, I suppose, is pursuading other email servers to trust you. There are so many reasons why they choose not to .... once youve got past SPF/DKIM/DMARC/SRS/ARC you can still be untrused ... could be your IP address, how long you've had your domain, changes in behaviour .... error messages can be less than helpful.
I think I'm now mostly working - I seemed to have pursuaded google & yahoo to trust emails from my server, sorted out forwarded rules that are more likely to be accepted and pass on the remaining few failures to a hosted service.
When did this become so hard ?
Still, lots of material for a new u3acommunities talk !
#SelfHosting @U3ACommunities Computing #u3a #u3a.social #toob
reshared this
U3ACommunities Computing and #selfhosting reshared this.
Barry Whenman
in reply to Peter Lord • •U3ACommunities Computing reshared this.
Peter Lord
in reply to Barry Whenman • •Yes I've found the same. I wouldn't get a btinternet account.
On failure I try again through smto2go now.
U3ACommunities Computing reshared this.
Barry Whenman
in reply to Peter Lord • •U3ACommunities Computing reshared this.
Peter Lord
in reply to Barry Whenman • •No.
smtp2go is a SMTP service (smtp2go.com/) ... there are others available. So if your email server failed to deliver, get it to re-try via smtp2go (smtp2go is more likely to be trusted by btinternet).
The free plan is likely to be enough for the few troublesome emails.
BTW, just annouced my next #u3acommunities talk in this subject ! See u3acommunities.org/event/email…
Barry Whenman likes this.
U3ACommunities Computing reshared this.
Peter Lord
in reply to Barry Whenman • •No.
smtp2go is a SMTP service (smtp2go.com/) ... there are others available. So if your email server failed to deliver, get it to re-try via smtp2go (smtp2go is more likely to be trusted by btinternet).
The free plan is likely to be enough for the few troublesome emails.
BTW, just annouced my next #u3acommunities talk in this subject ! See u3acommunities.org/event/email…
No.
smtp2go is a SMTP service (smtp2go.com/) ... there are others available. So if your email server failed to deliver, get it to re-try via smtp2go (smtp2go is more likely to be trusted by btinternet).
The free plan is likely to be enough for the few troublesome emails.
BTW, just annouced my next #u3acommunities talk in this subject ! See u3acommunities.org/event/email…
U3A Communities
2026-02-26 16:23:51
U3ACommunities Computing reshared this.