Spam blocking in 2026
from Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 12 Apr 13:26
https://downonthestreet.eu/post/604482

I self host my email since 20+ years. Always done with the postfix + dovecot stack with the works (dkim dmark DNS stuff etc).

In the last few years I just removed all spam filters as they where a chore and didn’t provide no much benefit (3-5 spam emails per week) even if my main email address has been out and about for at least 2 decades or more.

Recently, last few weeks, spam is picking up to the point I receive some 10+ spam emails per day and this is pretty annoying, obviously.

So, what are you doing for spam filtering at server level nowadays? Is it still spamassassin circus? Anything better or more efficient?

#selfhosted

threaded - newest

irmadlad@lemmy.world on 12 Apr 14:10 next collapse

Are you serving from a homelab or VPS? If a homelab, then you could use pFsense to filter spam. I don’t run my own email server but I do use pFsense to filter 95% of the junk from my inbox. I’m not sure how you’d accomplish that on a VPS other than employing some type of spam filtering software.

tofu@lemmy.nocturnal.garden on 12 Apr 14:58 next collapse

How do you block email spam with a firewall?

irmadlad@lemmy.world on 12 Apr 15:04 collapse

DNSBL and filter lists. You can use PfBlockerNG to import abuse lists, botnets, known open relays which reduce spam. You can also apply GeoIP blocklists to upstream SMTP hosts.

Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu on 12 Apr 15:03 collapse

What? I have opnSense how would I filter spam with it?

irmadlad@lemmy.world on 12 Apr 15:05 collapse

lemmy.world/post/45508262/23179666

ETA: I know what opnsense is, I have never used it so I am unaware of all of the packages it can run.

neidu3@sh.itjust.works on 12 Apr 14:15 next collapse

It’s been a while since I selfhosted my email, but I found it pretty efficient to set up a spam filter that periodically logged into my Gmail address and used its spam folder to train a bayes classifier.

bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de on 12 Apr 14:27 next collapse

rspamd is used nowadays. Add sieve filtering to automatically move mails with a 7.0 or higher to a spam-folder. Manually move mails there that haven’t been detected and move mails out of the spam folder that have been falsely detected (personally don’t have any false positives with rspamd).

Then set up bayes learning with rspamd, either when mails are moved between folders or every few hours.

Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu on 12 Apr 16:40 collapse

Do you have documentation or references on how to setup rspamd?

bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de on 12 Apr 17:20 collapse

I just googled something. Don’t remember what I ended up on. Probably some blog post combined with rspamd’s website. It depends on your mailserver anyways.

MatSeFi@lemmy.liebeleu.de on 12 Apr 14:31 next collapse

I definitively also observe the recent increase of spam (mostly on info@domain) however spamassassin (after some training) does a decent job sorting the trash out. Also I use a unique email address for each website I register, this way a lot of spam was removed by blocking an email-address I’ve used for login to facebook 10 years ago.

ikidd@lemmy.world on 12 Apr 14:32 next collapse

Rspamd seems to be common, it’s included in the mailcow stack and others. Seems to work pretty good, I’ve been on Mailcow for several years now with no major spam issues after I dialed it up a bit.

abeorch@friendica.ginestes.es on 12 Apr 15:09 collapse

@Shimitar @yunohost - / #yunohost has email hosting with dovecot and #spamhaus configured in it. There were some issues with spamhaus when running version 11 on vps but i read v12 fixed them.