Email server replacement

[warg]

Hello,

I come from managing Linux servers on my own and having experience with server control panels like DirectAdmin, Plesk, cPanel and so on. At the moment I think about converting to cloudron because I have one or two applications that cause a maintenance nightmare, e. g. where maintaining them causes so much workload that it's not feasible anymore due to quick release cycles, complex update or upgrade processes and so on.

For now, I understand that Cloudron does take care of the OS and the specific apps it supports so I have no work with that. I also found out that I can use so-called add-ons to use e. g. one PostgreSQL instance for multiple apps to save hardware resources.

What I don't see: Is it possible to operate a standalone, open source, stable mailserver solution like mailcow, exim/postfix, etc.? I read that Cloudron has an own mailserver in the paid license but no information on what it relies on and I dislike to have mails in Cloudron's UI itself. I prefer to have an own email app to make sure I can have a dedicated email environment.

Does something like this exist? If not, what would be a solution here? Using e. g. plesk + cloudron doesn't sound like it's supported or a good idea.

Best Regards,

[ccfu]

@warg

cloudron offers a complete email solution that is secure and works very well, also in the "free with up to two apps" version. It comes with the Haraka mailserver and you can install a Webmail app. Just use an instance for email only and you have a dedicated email environment.

[warg]

@ccfu Ok, this isn't what I was expecting. I never heard of Haraka mailserver before but at least it's not some self-developed mailserver solution that is Cloudron specific. So basically I could just a shared webmail app/frontend like Roundcube and I have the same result as with other server control panel solutions, right?

Edit: I just checked Haraka. Sounds like a very niche-software and quite small. Is there a specific reason this was chosen for Cloudron? I'm not sure this is security-wise or compliance-wise something I should rely on.

[girish]

@warg said in Email server replacement:

What I don't see: Is it possible to operate a standalone, open source, stable mailserver solution like mailcow, exim/postfix, etc.?

Email is built into Cloudron. If you want to keep the mail server separate from other apps, you can just install Cloudron on a separate VM and install no apps in it.

I read that Cloudron has an own mailserver in the paid license but no information on what it relies on and I dislike to have mails in Cloudron's UI itself. I prefer to have an own email app to make sure I can have a dedicated email environment.

As @ccfu pointed out, we didn't write our own mail server. The solution we build is upon opensource software - haraka for SMTP, dovecot for IMAP, spamassassin for spam processing. We chose Haraka because it's written in nodejs and customizable. We are also active contributors to the haraka project - https://github.com/haraka/Haraka/graphs/contributors . On a side note, this was around the time when we had a lot of issues configuring postfix and then we found that postfix doesn't have a repository to contribute. They just provide tarballs...

Also, Cloudron has no UI to access emails as such. You just use a webmail app of your liking. Like roundcube, SOGo. On mobile, you just use standard email apps. I use k9 on android, thunderbird on linux desktop.

On a side note, all this also means that it's not hard to migrate in and out of Cloudron. You just use imapsync to move mailboxes between providers. It's a bit tedious but that's the case when moving email.

[warg]

@girish said in Email server replacement:

On a side note, all this also means that it's not hard to migrate in and out of Cloudron.

I see. Thank you to both of you for your helpful replies. Actually having a vendor lock-in of some kind is exactly what I'm worried about and what's a major problem I want to avoid.

I wasn't aware that the free license also includes emails. So basically I can just try out Cloudron and see how it feels and does its job. At the moment it looks quite promising, especially after other solutions failed.

[ccfu]

@warg

Haraka is not as widely used as Postfix but it is also hardly a niche product and has been around since 2011. If anything it is down to preference. Cloudron chose it because it is lightweight and efficient and presumably because it best fit their architecture. The IMAP server in Cloudron is Dovecot, which is also used in Plesk.
What are your concerns?

Yes, the best thing to do is just give it a go and see if it fits your needs.