How to Easily Set up a Full-Fledged Mail Server on Ubuntu 20.04 with iRedMail
Last Updated: May 3rd, 2022Xiao Guoan (Admin)152 CommentsMail Server, Ubuntu
Setting up your own email server on Linux from scratch is a long and tedious process, a pain in the butt if you are not an advanced user. This tutorial will be showing you how to use iRedMail to quickly set up a full-featured mail server on Ubuntu 20.04, saving you lots of time and headaches.
What is iRedMail?
iRedMail is a shell script that automatically installs and configures all necessary mail server components on your Linux/BSD server, thus eliminating manual installation and configuration. With iRedMail, you can easily create unlimited mailboxes and unlimited mail domains in a web-based admin panel. Mailboxes can be stored in MariaDB/MySQL, PostgreSQL database, or OpenLDAP. The following is a list of open-source software that will be automatically installed and configured by iRedMail.
- Postfix SMTP server
- Dovecot IMAP server
- Nginx web server to serve the admin panel and webmail
- OpenLDAP, MySQL/MariaDB, or PostgreSQL for storing user information
- Amavised-new for DKIM signing and verification
- SpamAssassin for anti-spam
- ClamAV for anti-virus
- Roundcube webmail
- SOGo groupware, providing webmail, calendar (CalDAV), contacts (CardDAV), tasks and ActiveSync services.
- Fail2ban for protecting SSH
- mlmmj mailing list manager
- Netdata server monitoring
- iRedAPD Postfix policy server for greylisting
Step 1: Choose the Right Hosting Provider and Buy a Domain Name
To set up a full-featured email server with iRedMail, you need a server with at least 3GB RAM, because after the installation, your server will use more than 2GB of RAM.
It is highly recommended that you install iRedMail on a clean install of Ubuntu 20.04 server.
This tutorial is done on a $9/month Kamatera VPS (virtual private server) with 1 CPU and 3GB RAM. They offer a 30-day free trial.
Kamatera is a very good option to run a mail server because
- They don’t block port 25, so you can send unlimited emails (transactional email and newsletters) without spending money on SMTP relay service. Kamatera doesn’t have any SMTP limits. You can send a million emails per day.
- The IP address isn’t on any email blacklist. (At least this is true in my case. I chose the Dallas data center.) You definitely don’t want to be listed on the dreaded Microsoft Outlook IP blacklist or the spamrats blacklist. Some blacklists block an entire IP range and you have no way to delist your IP address from this kind of blacklist.
- You can edit PTR record to improve email deliverability.
- They allow you to send newsletters to your email subscribers with no hourly limits or daily limits, whatsoever.
- You can order multiple IP addresses for a single server. This is very useful for folks who need to send a large volume of emails. You can spread email traffic on multiple IP addresses to achieve better email deliverability.
Other VPS providers like DigitalOcean blocks port 25. DigitalOcean would not unblock port 25, so you will need to set up SMTP relay to bypass blocking, which can cost you additional money. If you use Vultr VPS, then port 25 is blocked by default. They can unblock it if you open a support ticket, but they may block it again at any time if they decide your email sending activity is not allowed. Vultr actually may re-block it if you use their servers to send newsletters.
Go to Kamatera website to create an account, then create your server in your account dashboard.
How to Easily Set up a Full-Fledged Mail Server on Ubuntu 20.04 with iRedMail
Last Updated: May 3rd, 2022Xiao Guoan (Admin)152 CommentsMail Server, Ubuntu
Setting up your own email server on Linux from scratch is a long and tedious process, a pain in the butt if you are not an advanced user. This tutorial will be showing you how to use iRedMail to quickly set up a full-featured mail server on Ubuntu 20.04, saving you lots of time and headaches.
What is iRedMail?
iRedMail is a shell script that automatically installs and configures all necessary mail server components on your Linux/BSD server, thus eliminating manual installation and configuration. With iRedMail, you can easily create unlimited mailboxes and unlimited mail domains in a web-based admin panel. Mailboxes can be stored in MariaDB/MySQL, PostgreSQL database, or OpenLDAP. The following is a list of open-source software that will be automatically installed and configured by iRedMail.
- Postfix SMTP server
- Dovecot IMAP server
- Nginx web server to serve the admin panel and webmail
- OpenLDAP, MySQL/MariaDB, or PostgreSQL for storing user information
- Amavised-new for DKIM signing and verification
- SpamAssassin for anti-spam
- ClamAV for anti-virus
- Roundcube webmail
- SOGo groupware, providing webmail, calendar (CalDAV), contacts (CardDAV), tasks and ActiveSync services.
- Fail2ban for protecting SSH
- mlmmj mailing list manager
- Netdata server monitoring
- iRedAPD Postfix policy server for greylisting
Step 1: Choose the Right Hosting Provider and Buy a Domain Name
To set up a full-featured email server with iRedMail, you need a server with at least 3GB RAM, because after the installation, your server will use more than 2GB of RAM.
It is highly recommended that you install iRedMail on a clean install of Ubuntu 20.04 server.
This tutorial is done on a $9/month Kamatera VPS (virtual private server) with 1 CPU and 3GB RAM. They offer a 30-day free trial.
Kamatera is a very good option to run a mail server because
- They don’t block port 25, so you can send unlimited emails (transactional email and newsletters) without spending money on SMTP relay service. Kamatera doesn’t have any SMTP limits. You can send a million emails per day.
- The IP address isn’t on any email blacklist. (At least this is true in my case. I chose the Dallas data center.) You definitely don’t want to be listed on the dreaded Microsoft Outlook IP blacklist or the spamrats blacklist. Some blacklists block an entire IP range and you have no way to delist your IP address from this kind of blacklist.
- You can edit PTR record to improve email deliverability.
- They allow you to send newsletters to your email subscribers with no hourly limits or daily limits, whatsoever.
- You can order multiple IP addresses for a single server. This is very useful for folks who need to send a large volume of emails. You can spread email traffic on multiple IP addresses to achieve better email deliverability.
Other VPS providers like DigitalOcean blocks port 25. DigitalOcean would not unblock port 25, so you will need to set up SMTP relay to bypass blocking, which can cost you additional money. If you use Vultr VPS, then port 25 is blocked by default. They can unblock it if you open a support ticket, but they may block it again at any time if they decide your email sending activity is not allowed. Vultr actually may re-block it if you use their servers to send newsletters.
Go to Kamatera website to create an account, then create your server in your account dashboard.
https://www.linuxbabe.com/mail-server/ubuntu-20-04-iredmail-server-installation