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⚠️ This page is part of the ISPmail guide for Debian Bookworm. Please use the newer guide for Debian Trixie.

# FAQ (frequently asked questions)

## Can I use this guide for my own work?

Section titled “Can I use this guide for my own work?”

Previously I claimed a copyright on the documentation. However let’s make things simpler. This Bullseye guide is using the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Which means:

- BY = Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- NC = NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. Do what you want with your mail server. But let’s keep the knowledge free.
- SA = ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

Besides that this guide has been a team effort. Many readers have contributed to it. I may spend the time to turn it into a guide but a lot of good ideas were not mine alone.

## Can I advertise in your guide?

Section titled “Can I advertise in your guide?”

No. There is no financial motivation. I just strive for freeing the world of email services once again.

## Why don’t you use Nginx/PostgreSQL?

Section titled “Why don’t you use Nginx/PostgreSQL?”

I personally prefer that software, too. Just go for it. But for the sake of consistency let’s keep Apache and MySQL as default choices in this guide so that readers upgrading from previous versions don’t have to switch.

## Do you offer paid support?

Section titled “Do you offer paid support?”

Generally, yes. Aside from my day job, I am a sysadmin freelancer. If you are just stuck at some point you may want to ask in the chat first though. You can find me there as well.

## How do I filter out malware?

Section titled “How do I filter out malware?”

I understand the need for it. If your users are using low-security operating systems (e.g. those that run EXE files) they are threatened by a lot of security problems. From the perspective of an email provider I would not want to take responsibility for filtering emails. That is only working on symptoms and not addressing the actual issues. Security is a fundamental concept and not something you slap on top of something inherently broken. I would not want to be blamed for a crypto trojan infection because the user relied on me saving them from bad things to happen. Client security in non-free systems is a topic on its own.

## Debian packages are too old and insecure

Section titled “Debian packages are too old and insecure”

If you use a Debian stable release you have chosen to stay on a specific software version. “Stable” means “a version that will not change”. That’s the best choice for a server. Those software packages are by no means less secure though because they also get security updates. Debian also has up-to-date packages but you surely don’t want to use them for a mail server unless you feel adventurous or have an intense hatred for your users. For a detailed discussion see this separate article.

## Can I download the guide as one file?

Section titled “Can I download the guide as one file?”

Unfortunately there is no easy way to accomplish that. Especially with interactive components like tabs of quizzes. The reasons are technical – not malice.

## Your guide looks cool. How did you make it?

Section titled “Your guide looks cool. How did you make it?”

The site is generated using Starlight. Discussions at the bottom of each page are powered by a self-hosted instance of Comentario. Diagrams have been created using Inkscape. User tracking is handled by a self-hosted instance of Rybbit. Everything here has been generated using open-source software and is not using any public cloud services.

## I can offer to translate your guide.

Section titled “I can offer to translate your guide.”

That is very kind to offer help. I understand the motivation to give back something. But trust me: you will lose interest quickly and regret your offer. The guide is huge. It may not appear like much but once you start typing you realize just how many months of work went into it. Even translating will take 1-2 weeks of your time. And after that someone would have to maintain both the original version and your translation. We tried that a couple of times and it did not turn out well.