[OPLINTECH] SMTP Checker

[Nathan Eady]

Chad Neeper via OPLINTECH <oplintech at lists.oplin.org> writes:

> 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. 

That is what I normally do as well: just telnet to port 25 and speak
SMTP to the server.  You don't need a complete knowledge of SMTP, just a
handful of the basics.  Just knowing EHLO, MAIL FROM, RCPT TO, and DATA
will cover what you need in at least 99% of cases.  There's actually
more stuff to know to test POP3 services, even though the protocol
itself is simpler than SMTP; you need a larger subset of it for basic
troubleshooting.

The one time you can't easily do it this way, is when you need to test
the SSL stuff.  I do kind of wish I had a tool for that, but I've never
taken the trouble to find or write one; it only comes up occasionally.

-- 
Nathan Eady
Galion Public Library