Re: Testing email connection to the outside world

Rob,

I think I have a C program that does a port check on a particular IP
address. If you pointed it at your mail server and port 25 it would tell you
if the service is active on that port. If you are interested you can contact
me off-list.

Patrick


----- Original Message -----
From: <rob@dekko.com>
To: <midrange-l@midrange.com>
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2001 12:17 PM
Subject: 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
>
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