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Recently I started experimenting with an email server hosted on a device on my own private network. The above mentioned server required me to open up ports on the router hiding everything.

As soon as the required ports (SMTP, IMAP related) were all open and forwarded to the mail server, I lost functionality of a Thunderbird mail client sitting on a PC hooked up to the same network.

So either Thunderbird works on that PC or the Mail Server.

Sort of the same thing is happening with the web access page of the mail server. The whole domain is SSL enabled, so if I forward the port 443 to the mail server's web server then that messes up connection of web browsers of PCs on the same network.

Now looking into all sorts of options of how to have a Mail Server and normal desktop PCs at the same time involved in HTTPS as well as SMTP and IMAP business, and all that through ONE public IP adress, my choices don't seem a lot.

Now I am thinking of trying to create a Reverse Proxy Server to sort out these issues with incoming data.

Could a Reverse Proxy Server fix these issues, or does it need a different solution, which I am probably not realising?

Andras
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Sounds like your router is set up to forward requests within the LAN, not from outside the LAN (WAN/internet).

Be aware that home/retail modems come with TCP 25 blocked (by law in the US) and your ISP may block TCP 25 as well so running a mail server reachable from the outside on a residential ISP is not practical unless your ISP is willing to reprovision your modem and doesn't block TCP 25. Additionally, if you can get around this, destination mail servers will almost certainly mark your outgoing mail as spam.

Peleion
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