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> If you [...] it works.

I've been running mailservers using free software for 20 years. I've run two for personal use, and several for groups like companies. In the old days, you could indeed throw up a server, and provided you don't spam, and you're not in a bad neighbourhood, outgoing mail would be accepted.

In more recent years, my experience has been that it takes time for a new mail sender to be acccepted; could be a year or two to build reputation. That's assuming you do everything right.

My personal mail, by the way, has been on the same domain since about 2001. I've quit running a mailserver now. My small ISP runs a setup that's basically what I would have built, so I use that; the support is excellent. But it's still on the same domain.

Last company I was at ran their mail on their ISPs mailserver. The ISP got taken over; service deteriorated, to the point it became unacceptable. So I built $EMPLOYER a mailserver; it took me longer than I predicted, because the bosses had all kinds of finicky requirements (don't they always) that I had to figure out how to provide after the fact. But that "artisanal" server beat the bejabers out of the ISP system; it was fast, reliable, and when anything went wrong I could fix it - which that ISP couldn't.



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