Running a mail server via MacPorts on macOS Monterey

[Gerben Wierda]

Yes, I have considered VMs. Or move to containers. But as long as I can prevent having more than one OS to keep in control, I will do so.

The big issue for me apart from minimising what I need to be in carol of is that I need this to survive a reboot completely (e.g. if I’m away for 3 weeks and something happens, I must be certain it all runs again without my intervention). I even created a setup to do the docker stuff (start a virtual box docker machine at boot without any need to be logged in). See Gerben Wierda / macOS-manage-docker-machines <https://gitlab.com/gctwnl/rnadockermachineonmacmanager> on GitLab.

But what I never got around to my time is limited) is making sure the docker stuff (or docker machines) were routed. And as long as my setup kept working there was not enough need.

Gerben Wierda (LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerbenwierda>)
R&A IT Strategy <https://ea.rna.nl/> (main site)
Book: Chess and the Art of Enterprise Architecture <https://ea.rna.nl/the-book/>
Book: Mastering ArchiMate <https://ea.rna.nl/the-book-edition-iii/>

> On 5 Mar 2022, at 14:56, Ralph Seichter via macports-users <macports-users at lists.macports.org> wrote:
> 
> * Gerben Wierda via macports-users:
> 
>> Apart from Steven Smith, are there other users here that run a mail
>> server setup via MacPorts? And is already someone else running on
>> Monterey?
> 
> While MacPorts provides the necessary ports for running a mail server on
> macOS, I'd suggest an alternative approach if you are dead set on using
> a Mac as the server machine. As mentioned here before, Apple is not
> making it easy to use regular macOS for server use, and this seems to be
> a deliberate decision on their end.
> 
> Have you considered running the mail server components in virtual
> machines (e.g. VirtualBox) or, even better, as a Docker/Containerd
> service stack? This method isolates Postfix, Dovecot et al from the
> underlying macOS, and the service Docker images can use Ubuntu, Debian,
> or whichever Linux you fancy.
> 
> I have introduced a Docker-based service infrastructure for a major mail
> service provider in Germany, catering for hundreds of thousands of users
> and millions of emails per day. While the production hardware is of
> course beefy, I develop and run the very same Docker images on my
> MacBook Pro.
> 
> -Ralph

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.macports.org/pipermail/macports-users/attachments/20220305/676b7733/attachment.htm>