Say, I'd like to set up a small mailing-list like thing for our house (& possibly close neighbourhood). Low traffic, about 20-30 members. Web-based, but not public (ie, password protected) archives.

What's an easy, self-hostable option/stack?

Do I just create a mailbox, and an aliases file that forwards the mail to everyone, and then put public-inbox behind a password prompt?

(Don't really want to do that. The public-inbox part is fine, but I'd much rather have a mailing-list shaped thing than aliases.)

Note: I already self-host my email, and people who are on the list do receive mail I send, and it's never arriving to spam, not even for gmail users. So deliverability is not a concern, neither is having to plug it into my existing email setup.

awesome-selfhosted's mailing list server list are sadly a bit disappointing.

Of the ones listed, pretty much Keila and mlmmj are the only two I'd consider. Keila feels like an overkill, mlmmj is something I've used in the past, was okay, but... maybe there's something even simpler?

...and something less C, heh.

Alternatively, I might consider not self-hosting this (there's nothing very sensitive discussed, so a hoster having access to the email is fine. I mean, google will see all of it anyway), if there's a sensible option that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

But I feel like self-hosting it will be less pain.

(We used to have a google group, but it was so horribly unusable that we kept Cc-ing each other. I've taken over some tasks from a neighbour, and now those Cc chains are annoying me, hence the desire for a list.)

@algernon

I wish my residential ISP would assign me a static address and let me send email. 😔

I used to have that, you know! It was glorious. I was the envy of…well, nobody, but still, glorious!

@argv_minus_one I use a relayhost to send, no static ip here, either (have the option, but costs extra, and I don't have much use for it).

A few decades ago, tho... selfhosting at home, with a static ip, that was indeed glorious. Wouldn't do that today...

@algernon

I still do. I can't send mail to anyone now, but I can receive.

And no, spam isn't a problem. Rspamd is eating them for breakfast. 1.5k messages scanned in the last 16 days. Almost all were blocked with an SMTP error response.

A few get through to my #spam folder (rspamd isn't quite sure about them), including some in which root (which is aliased to me) is being alerted by the system administrator (also me) that my webmail password is expiring (I don't use webmail). 😂

#selfhost

@algernon

Neat things about rspamd:

* Actually works.

* Doesn't block domains just because they're unknown. New senders welcome…as long as they're not spammers.

* If rspamd rejects a message, the SMTP server tells the sender that their message has been rejected. Genuine senders are informed that they need to contact me another way; their messages don't just disappear.

* Moving a message in or out of the spam folder trains the filter.

Downside: setting it up is an absolute b****.

@algernon do you need push notifications, or would a message board be fine?

@Fustiki_Scuria I need a mailing list.

@argv_minus_one tbh, I didn't have much trouble setting rspamd up. Though, it's been a few years, I might have erased the painful memories :)

@algernon

Did you do the thing where moving messages in/out of the spam folder trains the filter? That involved some very arcane Sieve shenanigans, as I recall.

@argv_minus_one Yes, I did. And yes, it did involve some Sieve, but... I grew up on procmail, Sieve was a huge improvement. =)

@jmtd @argv_minus_one

● rspamd.service - rapid spam filtering system
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/rspamd.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Tue 2024-03-05 11:18:46 UTC; 2 years 3 months ago
       Docs: https://rspamd.com/doc/
    Process: 278307 ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 1592271 (rspamd)
      Tasks: 8 (limit: 76870)
     Memory: 260.8M
        CPU: 18h 8min 35.671s

It's been running for 2 years, 3 months, and consumed a total of 18h of CPU time, and uses ~260M memory. I'd classify that as noise.

Mind you, my incoming mail is pretty light, about one message received every 5 minutes or so (70% of it spam).

@algernon @jmtd @argv_minus_one so theres a non-spam message every 17 minutes? thats still pretty intense

@hsza @argv_minus_one @jmtd Eh, it's much lighter than when I was subscribed to debian-bugs-dist@ and lkml, and a whole host of other lists.

This is also email for my wife, our kids (though, they only receive mail from us atm), my mom, and myself. Mom's subscribed to a lot of bullshit.

@algernon

How very mom of her. 😂 Good on you for safeguarding the family!

@hsza @jmtd

@algernon

2 years? There've been some gnarly kernel CVEs in the last 2 years. 😬

@jmtd

@argv_minus_one @jmtd

2 years? There've been some gnarly kernel CVEs in the last 2 years. 😬

# uptime
 06:37:43 up 1192 days, 20:33,  7 users,  load average: 0.93, 0.94, 0.97

More like 3 years and change. O:)

Bad @algernon ! Bad! What did Daddy tell you about infosec? 😛

@jmtd

@argv_minus_one My Dad used to teach infosec at a university before he retired. I'd say I learned everything about infosec from him.

@jmtd

@algernon

Didn't it include timely installing security patches?

@jmtd

@argv_minus_one It did. There are no more security patches for my EOL distro. It also included caution against upgrading to the latest thing immediately.

On a more serious note, this is a server I've been wanting to replace for the past ~4 years, but every time I was on the verge of being able to, some stupid calamity hit, and replacement got postponed.

I don't dare touch it at this point, because the slightest change may irreversibly break it, and I don't have the means to replace it if it goes down. It's literally held together by hopes and prayers.

@jmtd

@jmtd @algernon

Jeez. I'm lucky I picked Debian back in ~1997 and stuck with it this whole time. I had no idea then that it would one day be the Distro of Ages.