A Breather Page

You are not alone in your struggles.

Building a mail server is not easy.
To be honest, it is quite difficult.

When I first started down this path, I had no one to teach me.
I only began out of the necessity to set up a mail server myself,
rummaging through manuals, scouring the internet, and going through trial and error,
finally finishing the setup and thinking, "Now I can send and receive emails!"

But that expectation crumbled without fail.
A mail server is not that easy. Emails don’t go through. Or, while emails go out, Thunderbird won’t connect.

I thought Thunderbird was connected, but it couldn’t sync the emails.

As I dug through the logs, error messages were everywhere.
SPF? DKIM? TLS? SASL? LMTP?
"Why is this so complicated?"

At that moment, I promised myself.
“I hope I can explain this process easily to someone who walks the same path as I do someday.”
“I want to be a guide for those struggling to build a mail server alone.”

Thus, I started this blog series.

Thoughts While Writing

However, writing has proven to be more difficult than I thought.
Explaining what I know to someone else is an entirely different issue.

I keep wondering.
“Will the words I am writing now help others?”
“Will people understand properly after reading this?”

Especially, the topic of mail servers is so vast that it complicates things more.
SMTP, IMAP, POP3, SASL, TLS, SPF, DKIM, database, LMTP, firewall settings…
Will there truly be someone who understands all of this at once?

And another concern.
Who is my audience?

• Beginners struggle with the concepts,
• Intermediate users want to know the details,
• Experts ponder optimization methods.

Thus, the biggest dilemma is determining which level to explain.
I want to go beyond simply saying "you can set it up like this" to explain _why_ it should be set up this way.
Only then can true understanding be achieved.

Yet, the background knowledge and desired information differ for each reader,
so it’s truly challenging to write in a way that satisfies everyone.

But I Keep Moving Forward

I want to complete this series.
However, since this work is a process of constant contemplation and creation on my own,
perhaps I will need a breather page from time to time.

If you are reading this,
and struggling alone while building a mail server,
I hope you remember this.

You are not alone.

One night, I too stared at the logs in front of my computer,
wondering, "Why can’t the emails go through? I feel like I did it right, what’s missing?"
Knowing that pain, I write this.

And I have one wish.
If you have any questions after reading this,
I hope you leave a comment.
I think it’s much better to work through solutions together by receiving direct questions than to ponder alone.

Building a mail server is difficult. But perhaps it will be a little less challenging if we do it together.

Next Topic

Next, I will cover how to configure SMTP authentication by integrating Postfix and Dovecot.
This will enable the mail server to have complete sending and receiving capabilities.

So, let’s take a moment to breathe and then push forward again.
The end of building a mail server is in sight.