Solel//dev docs

Email for your domain

Home internet can't take mail in or send it out reliably: port 25 is usually blocked, and home addresses get blocklisted. So hosts your domain's mail at a mail service that can, and Mail brings each mailbox in like any other account. Migadu is the service works with.

What you need

  • A domain, such as example.com, and access to its DNS.
  • A Migadu account, and an API key from Migadu under My Account › API Keys.

What happens on the server

An admin sets it up in Mail's Settings, under Own addresses, with the domain, the email they sign in to Migadu with and the API key. Your own address @yourdomain has the steps. From there, the server:

  1. Adds the domain at Migadu if it isn't there, and lists the DNS records Migadu asks for, ready to copy.
  2. Checks the records, and turns the domain on once they're in place. Until then it looks again every ten minutes, or when you choose Check the records.
  3. With An address for everyone on, gives each person a mailbox at their username, like sam@example.com. Guests and children don't get one. Each mailbox starts working the first time its person signs in, and mail sent to it before then is kept.
  4. Connects each person's mailbox in Mail for them. Nobody ever sees a mailbox password.

If a change at Migadu doesn't go through, Solel tries again after a minute, then after twice as long each time, up to six hours. What went wrong shows on the address.

Keys and restoring

The Migadu API key and the mailbox passwords are sealed in Solel's database. The key that opens them is kept beside the database, and snapshots and backups don't include it. So after restoring onto another server, the domain shows as locked. Enter the Migadu API key again in Own addresses, and Solel gives each mailbox a new password at Migadu, which Mail picks up by itself.

The server's own email

Separately, can send email of its own: alerts about the server, notifications people choose to get by email, and invites. Set this up in Settings › Network under Email server, with any mail service that offers SMTP, such as your email provider's. Send a test email checks it works. See Network and domains.