Testing email connection to the outside world

I have this project to verify that we can send and receive email to the
outside world.  Duh, we can now, of course.  The problem is that they want
some sort of program that every x minutes verifies that we still can, and
if not, perform appropriate actions.

Options I have mulled around in my head include sending out an email using
SNDEMAIL and having it arrive into our Notes.  The problem is that if I do
this internally the Cisco kid has it never really leaving us.  Performance
wise this is a good thing  - testing wise it isn't.  We do this alot.  Our
current testing methodology does do this and a Notes agent - which executes
the SNDEMAIL on the 400 and does an action when new mail arrives into
Notes.  This actually tests quite alot.  Many of our problems have been
internally.  But it does leave out the line and problems with the ISP.

We thought of bouncing it off of yahoo or hotmail but the turnaround is
unacceptable.  Yahoo has an out of office but I am not sure how often it
grinds out the out-of-office message.  Yahoo also has a forwarding to
another address which sounds really cool but that only pumps it out on
occasion and not upon the receipt of new mail.

Our Cisco kid have me this url to verify our email, but I don't know how to
utilize this information programmatically:
http://www.zmailer.org/mxverify-cgi.html

Perhaps an option is to get DSL set up to my home and have a throwaway box
there configured with it's own email domain to bounce back messages.  Work
has already supplied my home PC and is currently paying for my second phone
line.  Some other employees here have this DSL connection with a VPN.  We
might be able to utilize them instead.

Rob Berendt
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin