If you’re going to set up a wireguard tunnel, why not just use PF to redirect the connection on port 25 to your machine at home? Just initiate the wireguard connection from home to VPS, and voila. It’s just a VPN, right?
Having said that, I just run an OpenSMTPD instance on a VPS, and use Dovecot on that host to access mail. You gotta decide how paranoid you want to me. While I don’t much want Google to do all the things Google does on email, I kinda doubt that the VPS will do that willy nilly. But that’s just me. Do your own threat assessment, and plan accordingly. Sean > On Sep 17, 2026, at 17:05, [email protected] wrote: > > I am considering running my own email domain/server. > To protect my private home IP, I was thinking of using a VPS, tunnelled back. > > Will the VPS "see" my email this way, relaying off the VPS server to my local > one? > (see diagram) > > Is there a better approach to retain privacy without revealing my IP? > > Would appreciate any input on this, as I have never run email myself before. > Thanks for any suggestions > > DNS Domain VPS Host (static IP) > ┌─────────┐ ┌──────────┐ > │MX Record┼────►│OpenSMTPD │ > └─────────┘ └────┬─────┘ > │ > │ Wireguard tunnel > ▼ > ┌──────────┐ > │pf.conf │ (allow mail in) > │OpenSMTPD │ > └──────────┘ >
