Top all-time · #4419
c0ffee.net blog
Personal blog · c0ffee.net/blogsystemssecurity
c0ffee.net blog is a personal blog at c0ffee.net about systems and security. Since 2017, 17 different Hacker News readers have linked it 24 times, most often “How to run your own mail server (2017)”. The last post was in 2019, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (16) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
c0ffee.net covers self-hosting and OpenBSD/FreeBSD laptop setup, with a mail server guide that HN commenters cite as a thorough walkthrough. Other posts cover DNS and laptop setup.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 16 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
c0ffee.net blog
Most-linked posts?
- How to run your own mail server (2017)7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2018-09-16
- How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2017-12-21
- FreeBSD on a Laptop (2017)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-07-13
- OpenBSD on a Laptop2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-11-03
- Dovecot Push Notifications for iOS2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-01-26
What Hacker News says?
I'll leave this here - it's a chunky read and might need tailoring to your situation, but it's an excellent walkthrough: https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/mail-server-guide/
Comment linking /blog/mail-server-guide/
on “Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?”Submitted How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017) as a story · 638 points
HN discussionI set up my own mail server following the guide here: https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/mail-server-guide/ I also referred to https://www.gmass.co/blog/smtp-server-linux/ I also looked at OwnCloud, but ended up just syncing from my phone to local Mac and doing backups off that regularly. You could also rsync to other devices. A raspberry Pi with a SSD at home would work fine. If you have a VPN set up on your own network (…
Comment linking /blog/mail-server-guide/
on “YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video”Submitted How to run your own mail server (2017) as a story · 389 points
HN discussionI believe OS X uses many of the same components under the hood. I have toyed with OS X Server.app (mostly just to get the necessary certificates to get IMAP push notifications working with iOS/Dovecot[1]) and it seems like a really solid choice. Not sure how you go about colocating a Mac Mini in a datacenter though. [1] https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/dovecot-push-notifications
Comment linking /blog/dovecot-push-notifications
on “How to Run Your Own Mail Server (2017)”Submitted OpenBSD on a Laptop as a story · 266 points
HN discussionYou might like the minimal tiling present in CWM (and likely other window managers, too). Basically, it is a regular old overlapping window manager but with keyboard commands as the primary control. If you have two or more windows you want to see on the screen at the same time tiling style, simply press the hotkey for either vertical or horizontal (Super+v for me). When I want to open a terminal window on top of a b…
Comment linking /blog/openbsd-on-a-laptop/
on “Sway 1.0”Submitted FreeBSD on a Laptop (2017) as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI've only been running it for about a year, but I simply don't get spam --- perhaps partially because it isn't my main email address. I went by this article, https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/mail-server-guide/ but I only set up Postfix and the various DNS records (MX, DKIM, etc.). I didn't set up Dovecot because I just use Mutt on the same server. And I haven't bothered to set up any kind of spam filter.
Comment linking /blog/mail-server-guide/
on “Mutt email client 25 years old”Submitted How to Run Your Own Mail Server as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI used to run Postfix + Dovecot + Rspamd with all the bells and whistles enabled [1], but I recently switched to OpenSMTPD + spamd on OpenBSD. Unlike rspamd, which has pluggable modules for everything under the sun (RBLs, word filters, Bayesian filtering + learning), spamd uses plain ol' graylisting with some PF integration to throttle spammers connections to 1 character/second for maximum annoyance. With Rspamd, I…
Comment linking /blog/mail-server-guide/
on “SpamAssassin is back”Submitted How to Run Your Own Mail Server as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI've spent years tweaking my mail server setup (Postfix, Dovecot, RSPAMD, LDAP...) and did a full writeup a few months ago. I've used other guides online but found most of the rest lacking on details. https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/mail-server-guide
Comment linking /blog/mail-server-guide
on “How and why I run my own DNS servers”Submitted FreeBSD Server Guide (2017) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI've been down this route but ultimately found much more stability running BIND as a hidden master and pushing NOTIFYs to secondary nameservers (I use DNSMadeEasy) whenever the zone is modified. Supports DNSSEC as well. I wrote up my setup here: https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/dns-hidden-master I host mostly static IPs, but I also use this setup with shared keys and PFSense's RFC2136 feature to push dynamic DNS updates…
Comment linking /blog/dns-hidden-master
on “How and why I run my own DNS servers”Submitted Dovecot Push Notifications for iOS as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThanks for the feedback! I've added a tidbit about syspatch, and also warned users about the (somewhat unusual) state of updates for third-party packages on OpenBSD: https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/openbsd-on-a-laptop/#updates
Comment linking /blog/openbsd-on-a-laptop/
on “OpenBSD on a Laptop”Setting up a mail server is somewhat intricate as admins added hurdles to cut spam. This was on HN a while back and is good stuff https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/mail-server-guide SPF, DKIM, DMARC all need to be set up. Check to see if the IP is any RBLs. Time also helps as the major MXers "learn" you are a real mail server.
Comment linking /blog/mail-server-guide
on “SUSE to be acquired by EQT Partners”I wish FreeBSD booted faster. I recall it took nearly a minute from turning my machine on (with an SSD and a recent Intel i5 processor) before I was prompted for my login credentials. It's little things like that which make the system feel a bit dated, at least to someone like me who is an outsider to FreeBSD but has used Linux for a decade. I also wished FreeBSD needed less configuration to use as a desktop (see ht…
Comment linking /blog/freebsd-on-a-laptop/
on “FreeBSD 13.0 Beta1 Now Available”Any cloud VPS service that provides ISO upload will allow you to use OpenBSD. Vultr has OpenBSD 6.4 and 6.5 images pre-configured that you can get installed on a VPS (I’m using a $3.50/mo one). For an even better experience, try it on an old ThinkPad following this guide [0]. You might like how suspend/resume just works, how your brightness and volume hotkeys just work, how the documentation is awesome, and how all…
Comment linking /blog/openbsd-on-a-laptop/
on “What are the differences between OpenBSD and Linux?”Yes definitely, with supported hardware. This blog was useful for me: https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/openbsd-on-a-laptop/#multimedia and https://www.openbsd.org/faq/
Comment linking /blog/openbsd-on-a-laptop/
on “What security does a default OpenBSD installation offer?”I've found the same. One of my favorite blog posts on getting FreeBSD working well on laptop is: https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/freebsd-on-a-laptop/
Comment linking /blog/freebsd-on-a-laptop/
on “Tutorial sites treating FreeBSD like a Linux distro”I host my own postfix server on FreeBSD and use the Evolution IMAP client on Linux. I haven't been in a situation where I need web access to mail in years so for me it's equivalent. I started out about 6 months ago with this great guide: https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/mail-server-guide/ The cost of a convenience like having a free email account is participating in the demise of the protocol-based networks that we have…
Comment linking /blog/mail-server-guide/
on “Ask HN: Whats the best alternative to Inbox?”I haven't made time for it yet but this guide seems pretty comprehensive and will be my starting point: https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/mail-server-guide/
Comment linking /blog/mail-server-guide/
on “Ask HN: Microsoft blocked my outlook.com account for using a VPN. Any ideas?”
