[OPLINTECH] SMTP Checker

[Chad Neeper]

Mindy,

Personally, I don't have any packaged SMTP checker *tools* that I use.
(Never actually thought to look for one, actually.) I suppose a tool could
be more robust and test different ports and conditions and could provide
information in an easy-to-understand way. But the handful of times I've
needed to do something like that, I just open a telnet session to the SMTP
server and test it that way. It's been a long time since I last did it, so
I did a quick google for the process. One of the first hits I found came
right from Microsoft:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mail-flow/test-smtp-telnet?view=exchserver-2019

The article makes things look a little daunting, but it's usually trivial
to open a telnet session and once you have the session open, the core steps
for communicating with the SMTP server are clearly shown:  OPEN, EHLO (not
a type-o), MAIL FROM, RCPT TO, DATA,...


Regarding the firewall, are you trying to do *outbound* filtering (*from*
LAN *to* internet)? That may not necessarily be a bad thing from a network
security perspective, but can be very difficult to balance network security
vs usability.

HTH and good luck,
Chad


______________________________
*Chad Neeper*
Senior Systems Engineer

*Level 9 Networks*
740-548-8070 (voice)
866-214-6607 (fax)

*Full IT/Computer consulting services -- Specialized in public libraries*


On Mon, Feb 6, 2023 at 6:22 AM Mindy Holmes via OPLINTECH <
oplintech at lists.oplin.org> wrote:

> I am trying to do some testing on a mail server and would like to find a
> good free SMTP checker with verbose reporting to help me isolate some
> issues that happening.  Since we received a new firewall, I have a good
> hunch something is not whitelisted that should be or something is not open
> that should be.  I can Google and find a bunch of results, but was hoping
> someone could recommend one that they have used that they felt was safe –
> free is best.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mindy Holmes
>
> Mason Public Library (OH)
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> OPLINTECH at lists.oplin.org
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