[kwlug-disc] Email server (lets bring this up again!)

[Chris Irwin]

On Wed, May 01, 2019 at 03:30:14PM -0400, Colin Mackay wrote:
> At a recent home and garden show, one of the vendors mentioned that
>someone with their own domain, used the vendor's business name as part of
>the email.  So a company named 'Ron Howard Construction' would be given the
>email 'ronhoward at mydomain.com'.

I've done this for years via catch-all. Any unclaimed addresses on my 
domain get routed to my primary address.

>I assumed this would just be a catch-all, which works... but with one
>caveat; you can't easily respond with 'ronhoward'.  Instead, your catch-all
>address is returned, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Reply capability varies depending on your configuration, provider, and 
clients.

If you're self-hosting, I'm sure you can figure out how to allow postfix 
to let you send mail from any address within your domain.

I used to have my domain hosted with Google ("GSuite"), and you had to 
pre-configure sending addresses separately from aliases. The process 
involved google sending a mail to that address you wish to send from, 
you clicking a link authorizing google to use that address. You can then 
switch at compose time (via web).

I currently have my domain hosted with Fastmail. They're intelligent 
enough to automatically allow you to send mail from any aliases which 
forward to your address. Their web interface is smart enough to 
automatically use the alias as your 'from' address when replying, 
including adjusting your signature.

For the most part, I use local email clients -- Mutt & Geary on my 
laptop, and Aquamail on Android. Mutt allows me to alter the 'from' 
address on a per-message basis, and Fastmail SMTP allows it (via the 
same alias rules). However, I haven't bothered investigating aliases on 
either Geary or Aquamail. Your client may/may not support aliases.

Mutt probably has a way to automatically change the from address on 
replies, but I've never really needed to worry about it.

>I would like to set this up, mostly just because it's there, and I want
>to...  I may never use it...

I use it for almost every website I ever sign up for. If I ever start 
getting spam on that address, there's no wonder about where it was 
leaked. It also allows me to blackhole addresses, and I only need to 
worry about the one site that used that address.

I occasionally use it in-person (for example: a store wants to email 
receipts to you), but sometimes explaining "no, that really is my 
address. I'm just a really big home depot fan" is awkward.

In practice, I haven't had to blackhole anything (spam filters are 
pretty decent).

-- 
Chris Irwin

email:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
 xmpp:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
  web: https://chrisirwin.ca