DNS is not the issue with mail and MTAs. Setting up an MX record is something you can do after googling and reading for about ten minutes. I have only anecdotal evidence to prove this, but that's basically how I set up my own first mail server.
What was a lot more difficult was setting up the actual mailserver itself. Even a simple, two-mailbox-operation was an exercise in frustration when it came to trying to get mail working on a little VPS of mine. Shit, you have to make the sendmail config. How balls-out insane is that?
More recently, there's little working tutorials to get yourself a working dovecot/postfix server, which are relatively easy to understand (thanks, digitalocean!) but I just checked out the first one I found on my google search and it's 2,800 words long. 20 pages if you were to print it out dead-tree style.
I can give you a tutorial on DNS and MX records in much less time than it would take to go through setting up any MTA on linux, and that's the trouble.
But I am actually referring to something different:
hosting your own mailserver.
So when I say "set up DNS" I mean set up a DNS server,
not simply an MX record. This allows you to create your
own domain names and hence email addresses. As I said
above, these email addresses are valid so long as you
and the recpipient use the same DNS root (e.g., ICANN's
root in the case of the public internet).
As bad as things are in terms of the relative difficulty
of setup, I think there are defenders of the status quo
for email and I imagine this explains how I could be
downvoted for my comment.
Don't get me wrong, I love email. It is the reliance on
others to handle 100% of it that troubles me. It is purely
a control issue.
What was a lot more difficult was setting up the actual mailserver itself. Even a simple, two-mailbox-operation was an exercise in frustration when it came to trying to get mail working on a little VPS of mine. Shit, you have to make the sendmail config. How balls-out insane is that?
More recently, there's little working tutorials to get yourself a working dovecot/postfix server, which are relatively easy to understand (thanks, digitalocean!) but I just checked out the first one I found on my google search and it's 2,800 words long. 20 pages if you were to print it out dead-tree style. I can give you a tutorial on DNS and MX records in much less time than it would take to go through setting up any MTA on linux, and that's the trouble.