There is no need for a monitor or graphics card. What kind of processor and memory you need depends on the amount of users you plan to be serving, but if it’s just you and some friends or family I’d say a raspberry pi or clone should be more than enough.
The person you’re replying to is right though, administering your own email server is a pain as you have very little control over which IP address your ISP assigns you and therefore no control over its reputation and chance to end up on spam lists. Also you need to be very aware of security issues in order to prevent your server being used to send out spam. It’s not something I’d recommend to someone who has no experience administering other servers.
freeman@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
you severely underestimate how big of a project this is. I got into homeservers a few years ago and still dont trust myself to open anything up to the internet. and a mailserver is very likely getting targetted, getting flooded with spam and at the same time has to have good uptime to be useable and practical. I think you should do this: Host something small first, like a PiHole oder AdGuard. Then maybe an arr Stack or Home Assistant. After that Immich/Ente and then a Website. Id you did at least one or two projects I mentionned you will be able to judge for yourself if you are ready for a own mailserver
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
There’s also the whole that even if you get everything working successfully that when you send mail it ends up in recipients junk mail folders because Google/Microsoft/other big email providers are marking your domain as spam since it’s new and unrecognized.
slazer2au@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Not just your domain because it’s newly registered. Your ISPs entire residential IP block because someone 15 years ago was infected with malware that sent gmail/hotmail some spam. It doesn’t mater how much SPF, DKIM, and DMARC you set up, your still blocked.
redsand@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
And this is the bottom of the rabbit hole that we all go down learning it’s probably not worth it even in a corporate environment much less homelab.