Re: Validating email addresses

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John,

When you say that ping will only validate the domain name, but that I
should use the other stuff, what more will that tell me?  For instance, if
my email address is fred@xyz.com will it tell me that fred is a valid
address at xyz.com, or just that xyz.com does process email and is not
strictly there for web pages or some such thing?

I am trying to figure out how much is enough.

In my sample code the exception for ping was different if ping was blocked
versus if it was a nonexistent host.

I understand that monitoring for bounced mail might be the best way.
However we will not be using a spamming address, but instead real people,
or groups, in the corporation.  These people will have the responsibility
to manually update the records storing the email addresses.

I kind of like this web site for checking mx records.  Try it for
dekko.com and then for ibm.com:

http://www.zmailer.org/mxverify-cgi.html

What this might be telling me on IBM.com is that I'd better be darn
careful doing the 'Then you would have to use sockets to connect to the
mail server, following the protocol for SMTP' or with IBM's security those
might be blocked also.

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