Splitting email from apps into separate Cloudrons

[3246]

Hi gang. Hope your New Year is going well

Quick question to ask your advice on the following situation:

My Cloudron has grown in size somewhat, especially since I moved mailboxes from O365 and Google onto it, which now means backups take for.ev.er.

Hence, I want to split mail from the apps and dedicate a fresh VM to email, so it can blossom without restrictions.

What's the best way to do this?

Right now, I am thinking:

1. Take a backup (good idea in any case)
2. Set up a second VM and give its own hostname under my main domain (e.g. email.bebraver.cloud)
3. Install Cloudron on it and connect it to my main apps server via LDAP
4. Change the email domain to be email.bebraver.cloud (rather than mail.)
5. Manually export mailboxes from the apps box to the mailbox (yes, pun intended)
6. Remove the mailboxes from the app server (and free up some more space)
7. I think there should be a seventh step because I like that number and it's a good place to have a nice cup of tea / pint of bitter

[murgero]

I'd build the new VM, install cloudron, put the domain on there with manual SSL (cause Let's Encrypt wont work without changing the DNS records) and then point MX to the new cloudron, enable email in the new cloudron and migrate user data either from backups or using an imap tool.

In theory it would work, or you can use a different email server for email and cloudron for everything else. (mailcow can do this AND also migrate user data)

[3246]

@murgero thanks. Yes, I hosted with Mailcow before. I wanted to consolidated everything onto one stack for easier maintenance

@girish @nebulon et al, can I clarify something about the Change Dashboard Domain from the docs?

https://docs.cloudron.io/domains/#dashboard-domain

Says it can be my.anything.com yet not clear if that precludes situations like my.something.anything.com?

I wanted to end up with my.apps.bebraver.cloud and my.email.bebraver.cloud if possible

[jdaviescoates]

@3246 said in Splitting email from apps into separate Cloudrons:

Says it can be my.anything.com yet not clear if that precludes situations like my.something.anything.com?
I wanted to end up with my.apps.bebraver.cloud and my.email.bebraver.cloud if possible

Yep, I can confirm that's perfectly possible, I have my.status.uniteddiversity.coop which just has Uptime Kuma installed and have previously had my.username.selfhost.cloud too (to see if it would work) and they both worked fine

[robi]

@jdaviescoates did you originally install to my.xx.ud.coop? or just my.ud.coop?

[3246]

@jdaviescoates how did you do it?

[3246]

@jdaviescoates is it as simple as:

1. Go to Domains & Certs
2. Click Add domain
3. Enter your sub-domain of choice (e.g. apps.bebraver.cloud)
4. Select the appropriate DNS Provider (e.g. Cloudflare)
5. Navigate to the Change Dashboard Domain section
6. Click on the domain drop-down (my....) and select the sub-domain you added (e.g. apps.bebraver.cloud).
7. Be sure to check that the new A Records are set up OK in your DNS for the sub-domains (e.g. apps.bebraver.cloud and my.apps.bebraver.cloud)

It looks like it should work, right?

[jdaviescoates]

@robi said in Splitting email from apps into separate Cloudrons:

@jdaviescoates did you originally install to my.xx.ud.coop? or just my.ud.coop?

In the examples mentioned I originally installed to my.xx.ud.coop

Indeed it's actually the very same Cloudron.

I originally installed at my.username.selfhost.cloud then when I no longer had a need for that I switched it my.status.ud.coop

@3246 said in Splitting email from apps into separate Cloudrons:

@jdaviescoates is it as simple as:

1. Go to Domains & Certs
2. Click Add domain
3. Enter your sub-domain of choice (e.g. apps.bebraver.cloud)
4. Select the appropriate DNS Provider (e.g. Cloudflare)
5. Navigate to the Change Dashboard Domain section
6. Click on the domain drop-down (my....) and select the sub-domain you added (e.g. apps.bebraver.cloud).
7. Be sure to check that the new A Records are set up OK in your DNS for the sub-domains (e.g. apps.bebraver.cloud and my.apps.bebraver.cloud)

It looks like it should work, right?

Yes, exactly, it's as simple as that.

[humptydumpty]

@3246 note that you can’t use cloudflare proxying with two level of subdomains.

Cloudflare universal certificates only support one level of subdomain with HTTPS proxying on the free plan. See this forum thread for more information.

https://docs.cloudron.io/domains/#cloudflare-dns

[3246]

@jdaviescoates super, thanks for confirming. I'll try it out now

@girish @nebulon can we add something to the docu about this, please?

[girish]

@3246 I think splitting email into a separate server is not a problem. But it can be cumbersome to take the emails from one server and put it into another (I guess this applies whether you are using Cloudron or not). You have to use something like imapsync to move the emails but that still doesn't move filters. Like https://docs.cloudron.io/guides/import-email/

Ideally, Cloudron should allow the email backup to be restored into another Cloudron, I guess. But this is not straightforward if domains betweens cloudrons differ etc.

[3246]

@girish it worked quite smoothly in the end but decided to upgrade my hosting and then have everything on one server again.

Backup time and size are an issue though. Especially having to wait until one is done before editing/adding or removing apps. Having a fast local disk to backup to helps though