General Email guidance.

First Rule of Thumb: Avoid running your own mail server.

Incoming mail is directed by the MX records of your domain. The easiest and most popular option is to sign up for Google Apps and point your MX records at Google.

Outgoing mail can be sent by anyone whatsoever, provided that the sender is permitted by the SPF record of your domain. This means that you can mix and match various sending solutions:

• Google Apps for manual sending (like replying to someone)

• Postmark, Amazon SES, or other service for automated sending

• Install an MTA on your Linode, make it send-only (there are stack scripts for that), and just use the mail() function in your web apps

Services like Postmark and Mailchimp are good for managing bounces and other complicated scenarios. If you don't need to monitor those things, Amazon SES or a send-only MTA on your Linode is more cost-effective. Using a send-only MTA requires a correct hostname and reverse DNS entry, but other than that it's pretty simple.

Thanks for the informative response.

Just out of curiosity - what type of solution have you deployed on your system?

If it helps, I run my own mail server, using this guide:

http://library.linode.com/email/postfix … 0.04-lucid">http://library.linode.com/email/postfix/dovecot-mysql-ubuntu-10.04-lucid

with a minor deviation - I use postfixadmin to set up email aliases/domains/mailboxes.

I agree with hybinet, though. Google Apps + send-only postfix (or what have you) on your Linode will take you a long way.

I just happen to like beating my head against a wall. :)

@xer0:

and Postmarkapp.com for BULK emails.

Bulk emails? You mean spam?

If you don't know how to spam that's good, the Internet doesn't need more of that stuff.

It's probably not spam if Postmark is being used in the present tense.

@sednet:

@xer0:

and Postmarkapp.com for BULK emails.

Bulk emails? You mean spam?

If you don't know how to spam that's good, the Internet doesn't need more of that stuff.

That's what obviously comes to your mind when you see the word BULK.

But did you consider that I just want an automated way of responding to a customer registration.

Hmm… Don't be jumping to conclusions.

For automatic responses to customer registration I'd go for amazon s3, they recently released a smtp interface which makes integration a breeze, this is what I use to sends over 20k newsletters every week

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/ses/l … stfix.html">http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/SMTP.MTAs.Postfix.html

@obs:

For automatic responses to customer registration I'd go for amazon s3, they recently released a smtp interface which makes integration a breeze, this is what I use to sends over 20k newsletters every week

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/ses/l … stfix.html">http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/SMTP.MTAs.Postfix.html

S3 is the storage (simple storage service). you mean AWS (amazon web services)

@glg:

@obs:

For automatic responses to customer registration I'd go for amazon s3, they recently released a smtp interface which makes integration a breeze, this is what I use to sends over 20k newsletters every week

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/ses/l … stfix.html">http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/SMTP.MTAs.Postfix.html

S3 is the storage (simple storage service). you mean AWS (amazon web services)

Actually I meant SES…brain hadn't warmed up when I wrote that.

@hybinet:

First Rule of Thumb: Avoid running your own mail server.

That is if he wants a simple solution which is in fact what he stated so that fits.

Otherwise, giving control of your email to another company is maybe not the best idea in many situations.

Hey guys,

I just wanted to THANK YOU all for your help.

In the end, I've gone for google apps for my basic email requirements (send + receive).

I need to verify whether automated response emails will work for new users. Can anyone confirm OR do I still need to use a 3rd party like Amazon or Postmark app?

@jebblue:

Otherwise, giving control of your email to another company is maybe not the best idea in many situations.
That depends on who the company is. Some people don't trust Google or Microsoft. But there are other options too, like Fastmail and Tuffmail, if you're willing to pay. There's probably an option for anyone except the most paranoid people.

@xer0:

I need to verify whether automated response emails will work for new users. Can anyone confirm OR do I still need to use a 3rd party like Amazon or Postmark app?
Amazon SES is really easy, because they support plain old SMTP. You just need to make sure that Amazon is in your SPF record and your web app is able to make use of an external SMTP server. If you're writing your own app, most e-mail sending libraries such as PHPMailer and SwiftMailer support external SMTP servers.

You can also set up send-only Postfix. It is extremely rare for e-mails sent from a properly configured send-only Postfix instance to be rejected by major e-mail services. In this case, you will be responsible for using a fully qualified domain name as your mail server hostname, ensuring that this fqdn has a DNS entry that actually points to your Linode, etc. But once you've set it up, it's mostly maintenance-free.

So I should be able to mix and match Google Apps with Amazon SES?

@xer0:

So I should be able to mix and match Google Apps with Amazon SES?
Yes, absolutely. Google Apps for incoming mail and any outgoing mail that you personally want to send. Amazon SES for automated outgoing mail. This works because sending and receiving are completely independent processes.

For this to work properly, Google needs to be in your MX records. (MX records determine where your incoming mail goes.) Both Google and Amazon, as well as any other server that sends mail for your site, need to be in your SPF record. (The SPF record tells other people which servers are permitted to send mail on behalf of your domain.)

Excellent! This is music to my ears.

Now I don't need to worry about spam, spoofing, security and other malicious intent.

Good times! :D