[Cialug] Hosting Mailman

[Jordan Cook]

Thank you all for the tips! That's very helpful. I didn't realize it was that resource-hungry. Sounds like that likely rules out the cheapest 1GB VPS options, then.

On Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025 at 7:23 AM, Ron <ron at bclug.ca> wrote:

> These exclude the PostgreSQL and Apache/NGINX services also required.

Nginx usually has a pretty tiny footprint, and I do have an existing Postgres db I could use. Or I might be able to get by with the SQLite backend? IME SQLite can be surprisingly capable, if the application handles transactions and concurrency well. As soon as I see an `OperationalError: Database Locked`, though, I'm outta there.

> Start with a domain, Postfix, (& Dovecot, why not?)

I wasn't familiar with Dovecot (or, honestly, most email infra until starting down this rabbit hole a month ago!), but checked it out and added it to my list of things to try out. I don't need real mailboxes yet, but it would be cool to try fully (or mostly) self-hosted email. Oh, and it supports Sieve filters! Nice. After switching to a provider that supports Sieve, that's now a must-have for me.

> Privacy legislation in Canada and Europe exists

Yes, and I'm jealous.

> I'd be willing to set you up with MM3 for <$15/mo CDN

That's a very reasonable offer. I'll consider it, thank you! Right now my plan is:

* Try to get Mailman running on my home server (probably using the Docker images Lee linked)
* If that works, try to get it running on a VPS
* If that turns out to be more work than it's worth... well, I'll have more appreciation for paying someone to do it for me.


It also occurred to me that another option might be hosting Mailman on my home server but using an SMTP relay (like MXroute or SES) to do the actual sending. Would that be a terrible idea, or a reasonable way to reduce hosting costs while avoiding IP reputation issues?


Thanks,
Jordan