Mailcow + PMG make sense?

[proxwolfe]

Hi,

I am running a Mailcow instance in a VM on my cluster and it is going great.

But, me being me and my cluster being a home lab and no commercial operation, I am always trying out new things, playing around.

Now I am wondering whether there would be any benefit in setting up a Proxmox Mail Gateway in front of my Mailcow VM. Mailcow does have its own virus and spam killers. So would there be any benefit in spinning up PMG as well or does that not make any sense?

Thanks!

 

[sb-jw]

I also use both solutions but not in combination and would also say that it's not worth it.

However, if you want to learn something and the mailcow isn't that important to you at the moment, then play with it. Maybe you'll find that it's something for you after all.

 

[keeka]

I use PMG in an homelab situation for personal domains. I have played with various all-in-one mail solutions (and learnt much from them) as well as build a mailserver stack from scratch. I now know I prefer the least coupled, modular approach. PMG fits this preference quite well. As dedicated gateway, it leaves you free to choose the remainder of the mail pipeline. Mailcow IMO doesn't accomodate such freedom choice as it attempts to do it all.

 

[killmasta93]

yeah currently using PMG with mailcow with around 400 email users, working great no issue

 

[Felix.]

Interested in this as well.
Want to ditch Plesk as Mail Server and replace it with Mailcow.

When hosting at home, things may break, especially when we play around.
PMG is hosted externally and acts as a Queue for incoming mails whenever my Homelab is unavailable, for whatever reasons.
This may be a reason to consider using it.

 

[proxwolfe]

yeah currently using PMG with mailcow with around 400 email users, working great no issue

And where do you see the benefits of combining the two (they seem to be duplicating some functionality between them)?

 

[proxwolfe]

Interested in this as well.
Want to ditch Plesk as Mail Server and replace it with Mailcow.

When hosting at home, things may break, especially when we play around.
PMG is hosted externally and acts as a Queue for incoming mails whenever my Homelab is unavailable, for whatever reasons.
This may be a reason to consider using it.

If I am not mistaken, then the temporary down time of your mail server should not result in missing (or even the loss of) emails. The sending mail server should keep trying for a while (up to two days or so) before giving up.

 

[killmasta93]

And where do you see the benefits of combining the two (they seem to be duplicating some functionality between them)?

the benefit i like is the tracking center of PMG, yes i know that mailcow has the rspamd also web interface and yes it can also block things but its like having another filter i use both of them
Also i expose port 25 of PMG and not on mailcow which somewhat does gives me a bit a peace of mind

Correct if the email server is down you wont loose emails

 

[Felix.]

The sending mail server should keep trying for a while (up to two days or so) before giving up.

This assumes a reliable sending mail server that honors certain standards.
Feeling better with having the buffer on my side, and I don't have to wait several hours after my own Mail Server is working again, I can directly deliver queued Mails from the PMG UI.

I'd disable as much filtering in Mailcow as possible, because its not useful to have them both filter the Mails.

Another feature I use, not sure if Mailcow provides such functionality, is BCC'ing my DMS inbox on any Mail adressed to my personal addresses and containing .pdf attachments. Using PMGs rule system.