SMTP Commands to Test Mail Sending

Email exchange dominates the mode of communication nowadays. Speedier and smoother mail delivery is a need to build up connections to the unfamiliar faces and stay in touch with the familiar ones. To meet the mail sender’s covert wish for the fastest and easiest mail delivery mechanism, SMTP was developed and implemented. As soon as this mail sending protocol was installed, email sending has become much easier and quicker surpassing our anticipation.

Successful installation of SMTP is not a problem. Understanding it is fairly easy as it is a simple text based protocol. However, you always feel interested to test if the server is working properly or not. Fortunately, with the help of certain commands, you can always test the message flow and identify if any problem is there.

Determine Mail Server that Will Receive Email Messages Suppose you domain is medomain.com and you have to send mails to themdomain.com Enter NSLOOKUP at the command prompt.

Set q=mx
themdomain.com

Response will be as follows: Non-authoritative answer Themdomain.com MX preference = 50, mail exchanger = mail. Themdomain.com Setting up Connection to Mail Server Connect to their mail server Port 25 is the standard one for communication by dint of SMTP mechanism. TELNET command can be used to set up connection to the mail server “mail.themdomain.com” Input TELNET MAIL.THEMDOMAIN.COM 25 Response will be as follows: 220 nx.google.com ESMTP 6si6523726yxg.6 Different servers will generate different messages but if everything is okay, you will at least get something. In case, nothing comes up on the screen, you may be sure that some problems are there. Problem may be of two types. Either server is not replying to your enquiry or port 25 has been blocked. Try for the second time using a different domain. If SMTP relay services are still not working, then you may have to call an expert to identify the problem.

Sending Email Now you have to key in SMTP commands. You have to enter them perfectly as backspace key will not function here. Type the followings carefully: ehlo mydomain.com mail from: < steve1007@medomain.com> rept to:< recipient@themdomain.com> data it is a test, so no need to respond. quit What does this refer to? EHLO – HELO command is for primary introduction whereas EHLO instructs the server to use the extra command set. Mail From – Always put this command within the greater than and less than brackets as most of the SMTP servers require this specification. RCPT to – It refers to the recipient. Make sure to use the command within the greater than and less than brackets. DATA - It introduces the body of your email to the SMTP server. (“PERIOD”) – It informs the SMTP server that data portion is successfully completed and the server can now send the mail. quit – You enter this command to exit from the TELNET session. Testing SMTP relay: Testing is fairly simple and you just have to make simple changes to the above-listed commands. ehlo medomain.com mail from: rept: to: data It is a test, no need to response quit

About the Author

Smith Witwiki is working for a SMTP service related company. So he has vast knowledge on SMTP relay services. For more information on SMTP he suggest visit http://www.mysmtp.eu/

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