github/sowbug

SMTP sample exchange

Because I always forget, here’s how to manually send a mail given a telnet client and an SMTP server in order to test and make sure the server’s working:

$ telnet mail.example.com 25 Trying 12.34.56.78... Connected to mail.example.com (12.34.56.78). Escape character is '^]'. 220 mail.example.com ESMTP Ready on Mon, 21 Mar 2005 16:29:31 -0800 [a.mail] HELO mail.somewhere.com 250 a.mail.somewhere.com Hello 98.76.54.32.somewhere.com [98.76.54.32], pleased to meet you MAIL FROM:<mike@somewhere.com> 250 2.1.0 <mike@somewhere.com>... Sender ok RCPT TO:<someone@example.com> 250 2.1.5 <someone@example.com>... Recipient ok DATA 354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself Hello there! OK, bye! . 250 2.0.0 0987654321 Message accepted for delivery QUIT 221 2.0.0 a.mail.example.com closing connection Connection closed by foreign host. $