Homelab server with external postfix

allancomar

Hello all. I am looking for some advice here.
I have a very peculiar scenario, I want to run Mailcow on my homelab infrastructure, but I don’t want to use the ISP ip to send and receive emails.
I am thinking about 2 options
1st would be having a small VPS from a reliable provider with fixed IP, with a VPN connection to my lab and forward traffic back and forward for the needed ports.
2nd have the same VPS running postfix and the vpn so the postfix could be used the receive and send the emails.

I am wondering which of these options are better? Or there is any other scenario that i should consider, that does not involve me having to pay for a host with lots of disk and memory.

Thanks.

DocFraggle

Before you rent a VPS just to send out mails I would have a look at using Mailgun or Sendgrid or something similar as relay service for outgoing mails in your case.

https://docs.mailcow.email/manual-guides/Postfix/u_e-postfix-relayhost/

esackbauer

I would agree to DocFraggle. I have also a mailcow at a home ISP connection.
Either ask your ISP to get a static IP (this is possible with some ISPs, some need to switch you to a business contract) and you can directly send from your testlab.
Or you could use e.g. sendgrid free tier as a relay for sending mails. I think its free of charge for up to 100 mails per day.
Otherwise you could indeed use a postfix on a small VPS, just for sending mails. No need for a VPN though. Just allow postfix to only accept mails from your DDNS name.
Do not use the VPS to receive mails, let the MX point to the DDNS name of your mailcow directly, otherwise you cannot use spam tools of mailcow properly.

allancomar

Thanks for the replies. In my case I am more concerned on receiving emails for my domain than sending. That is the reason I was thinking on the vps with the VPN to reach out to my server.

I will take a look at the services you mentioned but my guess they are for sending emails only.

Thanks again

esackbauer

allancomar but my guess they are for sending emails only.

Yes, they are. However you can receive mails on your homelab already. You don’t need additional service for that, if you have a dynamic DNS configured.

allancomar

Thanks again. In the past I had a lot of issues with dynamicdns and DNS propagation issues, I will take a closer looks on the services to see if that could be easier.

esackbauer

I have good experience with namecheap.com. You can use their free DNS tier.