Sending EMails for User Notifications and not SPAM
Hi Everyone,
This is my first question so be gentle.
We have created a platform for various persons to communicate with each other and one of the needs is to be able to send various types of notifications to our users. These notifications are in the form of email and will be used for only constructive and requested communication. NOT SPAM PROMISE. If a user does not want the email then they can go to setting and opt out from their profile easily. Not some hidden page like frakin facebook, google, twitter whatever.
Would someone recommend the best email server to use at Linode. Something that will only allow outbound email from an internal java program that will throttle the emails out appropriately?
Please forgive my message. I just do want to make something that can not be hijacked and abused. I want it safe and controlled to allow only out bound emails.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Stephen
2 Replies
isackey
Linode Staff
We have a guide to running your own mail server that discusses some of the pros and cons, as well as lists some requirements needed to be met to run a mail server, such as setting MX and SPF DNS records. You may want to use an external mail provider such as Postmark or Fastmail to handle mail server duties. These are the most popular and most recommended.
Running your own mail server can be a little complex but we have a guide on Configuring a Mail Server with Postfix, Dovecot, and MySQL on Debian that can guide you in setting up a mail server if you follow the steps carefully as any misconfigurations may cause your server not function properly or work as expected.
As far as security of your server is concerned, you may want to checkout our guide on Securing Your Server. This guide contains a lot of security measures you can implement to better harden and secure your Linode. We also have guides on Best Practices for Email Servers that I'll also recommend you check out. Just a heads up that all new Linode accounts by default have SMTP restrictions in place. You'll have to reach out to support to have these restrictions lifted so you can send emails.
