Looking for a guide to collect all e-mail from the ISP mail server

[@lbutlr]

> On 26 Oct 2020, at 09:11, R. Diez <rdiezmail-2006 at yahoo.de> wrote:
> 
>>> 
>>> I would not advice any company that is continuously being fined for breaking the law.
> 
>> This is not only an overstatement, it is completely irrelevant.  Given the OP problem
>> statement (small business, part-time admin, newbie to mail servers), I do not think there is a better solution
>> A small server already costs 20 USD / month, running a mail server consumes a significant amount of resources, and as the OP mentions running a mail server also represents a high security risk.
> 
> 
> Guys, this kind of advice is not helping me either.
> 
> First of all, I want to learn how to do it, just for fun. Even if paying for a hosted solution is an economically better solution. It's not for me to decide anyway.

If you want to do it for fun and learning, setup a private mail server for yourself and maybe some friends. You do not have "fun" with a company's emails, not even a non-profit. ESPECAILLY since you have rather sepcific legal restrictions and requirements on that email.

Doing it yourself is possible IF you already know what you are doing very well. Doing this yourself as a "fun learning experiment" is irresponsible.

> I will not recommend Google. Ever heard of data protection and data confidentiality? And then you are completely dependent. Your are nothing for a huge company like Google. If they lose your complete e-mail database, they will tell you that they are awfully sorry. If at all.

You are still confusing two very different things, the paid Google hosting service and the free gmail service. They are not the same thing. You paranoia is based on ignorance. You do not, obviously have to go with Google. There are many other choices. Hundreds. Your government may even have a list of companies that comply with German and European laws.

> And no, running a mail server does not "consume a significant amount of resources". Any 10-year-old laptop can easily cater for a small business.

That depends. You need to find an 18yo laptop that can run a current OS with current security libraries, so that's a stretch right there. And while it may not consume a lot of CPU resources, it consumes a lot of human/brain resources. It takes knowledge which takes time. Your idea that you can just setup a mialserver and walk away and never look at it again is laughable.

> Besides, paying $6/user/month is actually very expensive for some small organisations.

Depends on what the cost of, for example, having all your email ransomwared or published to some website costs. If your non-profit gets funding, your country and the EU have very strict laws on the security of email and the requirement to keep it archived and to ensure the data cannot get out. You may be facing serious fines or even jail time if you setup an mail server badly that results (as it almost surely will) a third party accessing that mail.

> If you have 20 volunteers coming to the help in a small public library once a month, that would be $1440 a year just for e-mail services.

If you feel the need to give 20 volunteers individual, personal email addresses, sure. $1500 a year for any sort of business, even a non-profit, is not a significant cost.

> Most such people would continue to use private Hotmail addresses. I would rather install a Synology NAS and use whatever e-mail service it comes with it.

You have to pay for that too.

> An on-premise mail server is, and should be, virtually free,

It is not. You need someone to admin it. You need someone to be vigilant and see when things are going wrong, or when an intruder has gained access, or when your DNS has expired, or your certificates need to be renewed, or a major system update is required. You also need (well, should have) a  backup server, UPS systems (check those batteries!) and a whole host of other things that need to be done.

> at least for a basic e-mail service. No need for cloud. No need to expose any ports. No need to configure the firewall. No need to ask anything from your ISP.

You cannot send or receive any email if all your ports are closed. In order to communicate with anyone else, you must have the ability to connect to them.

But it sure sounds like you've made up your mind to make the worst decision and are ignoring the advice of many people who do this all day, everyday. Good luck with that.

Please check with your legal counsel first, you may be shocked as to what the EU and Germany actually require and what penalties you face when you decide to ignore those requirements. For example, are you aware that Germany requires TLS encryption on all email? And has more stringent E2EE requirements on many emails?

-- 
"Let's get back to syntax of procmail and forget the syntax of
	fools." Don