For quite some time I have been looking into setting up my own mail server. But having configured postfix for a little service I run, I’d been cautious making changes into that direction. Postfix offers too many configuration options, too many settings and all in a way that’s too arcane to me; every change in fear of accidentally creating an open relay by accident.

But recently I came across an article by SIDN about four modern systems for self hosting e-mail and I was intrigued. Especially about Chasquid, with its limited scope and focus on security, also through ease of configuration.

Getting started

Actually the tool comes with a nice setup guide. And first bonus, it suggest to just make use apt (although it won’t get you the latest); no special repos. So I made sure a test server I had running was updated to the latest Debian and installed Chasquid a…

There important reasons to use HTTPS. It makes your systems more secure, helps to protect your users privacy, and will prevent others to hijack your account to deface your site.

If you’ve ever tried to secure your site you may have found how hard it is. You have to generate a private key, a certificate signing request, upload that request somewhere, pay, process the e-mail, upload the certificate, configure your server and set a reminder that in 1, 2, 3 or 5 years you’ve got to go through most of that same process again (which I described before in more detail in an earlier “how I do it”-article. Well, no longer! Enter: Let’s encrypt.

Actually, Let’s encrypt is so easy that I had doubts whether I should even write this post. But maybe it wins an extra soul or two over.

The recommended way to get sta…