Cloudflare Proxy Settings

10Meisterbaelle

I am using Cloudflare DNS and I want to know if I should turn the proxy off for mail, autoconfig and autodiscover or if I could keep it turned on.
Thanks!

pkernstock

Cloudflare only proxies HTTP/HTTPS, so basically enabling the proxy breaks your mailserver and stops you from receiving mails. Only in the Enterprise plan (I believe 5.000 USD/month+) you can also let Cloudflare proxy IMAP/SMTP/POP3.

tl;dr: Let it disabled.

kumr

ah, so we can’t expose the local IMAP/IMAPS port to the outside world using Cloudflare free tier ?

esackbauer

kumr Correct.

kumr

🙁 that’s a shame, any other way to access a local IMAP/IMAPS port from outside the LAN please? Perhaps using a method similar to how the SoGo webmail client is able to achieve this(?)

I don’t want to send or receive emails: just read and delete from the server. I’d like to access these outside of the SoGo interface, and from outside the LAN (can already access inside the LAN).

Background: it’s just a dump of my old gmail mailbox, using the v useful sync jobs: https://docs.mailcow.email/post_installation/firststeps-sync_jobs_migration/ in mailcow/mailcow-dockerized

I’ve set up a Cloudflare tunnel to said ip address (say 192.168.8.5); can successfully access the MailCow & SoGo interfaces using the subdomain assigned (say mc.example.com), while mail clients (such as Thunderbird) are able to fetch emails when setup with the ip address of the Mailcow server(say 192.168.8.5:143)
But mail clients are unable to connect to the subdomain:port combo (say mc.example.com:993 or 143) as Cloudflare will not proxy IMAP/IMAPS (in the free tier anyway)

esackbauer

Then mailcow is a total overkill for your solution.
A simple dovecot container and maybe imapsync container would be sufficient for your use case.

kumr any other way to access a local IMAP/IMAPS port from outside the LAN please?

No, you have to NAT those ports to mailcow. Why you want to do it with cloudflare? That is not necessary.

DocFraggle

kumr I don’t want to send or receive emails: just read and delete from the server.

So it’s only you who wants to access it? Why not use a VPN connection then? I guess you can easily setup a VPN on your home router, setup the client on your phone and voila, access to your mailcow from everywhere

(I assume your Mailcow is running at home, otherwise I wouldn’t understand the whole issue at all 🙂 )

kumr

I agree it’s overkill but I need these two things:
a. sync the mailbox from Gmail and then
b. access it from outside my LAN(currently via SoGo webmail but that’s still better than nothing at all):
Getting the whole Mailcow suite seemed to be the easiest option compared to the others …

Not too keen on setting up a VPN and then another app on the phone just to access this one mailbox (which I’ll rarely use anyway), think I’ll just continue using SoGo webmail for this 🤷

(yes, running the mailcow server at home, I don’t have a static iP address)

mlcwuser

kumr (yes, running the mailcow server at home, I don’t have a static iP address)

Are you also behind CG-NAT? If not, i.e. if your ISP has assigned you a dynamic address that is publicly routable, you can still set up a VPN or port forwarding and then use a DynDNS address from a Dynamic DNS provider such as IPv64.de, afraid.org, DuckDNS, etc. to access it.