Member Avatar for chuckt3hnewb

I have been with my company (a wireless Internet provider) for about a year and we were using a local T-1 provider for internet which came with a business class e-mail. Well we moved on to AT&T T-1s and now we don't need them, so I installed a SME server 7.0 on a mid-tower with 250GB /usr directory and i think that i have it set up but i want to test it without having the DNS point to it's IP instead of our previous ISP's. How would i go about doing this? I am REALLY new to Linux and i only know a few commands and a walkthough only gets me to following instructions instead of learning what i am doing so If anyone has a better recommendation instead of SME server or has used it before and has it routing mail already please let me know how you did with out a walk through

Thanks for reading my post

  • 2 Contributors
  • 3 Replies
  • 140 Views
  • 1 Day Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by chuckt3hnewb

Dani AI

Generated

Short, practical ways to test a mail server without changing the live MX.

: two reliable approaches let you validate delivery while the public DNS still points elsewhere. First, on a single test client override the MX host with a hosts-file entry so only that machine sends to your new server. Edit the hosts file (Linux: /etc/hosts, Windows: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts) and add a line mapping the mail hostname to the server IP (map the actual MX hostname, not just the domain, if your DNS uses an MX record).

1.2.3.4 mail.yourdomain.com

Second, test SMTP directly from a remote machine by opening a connection to port 25 and performing a manual SMTP session. This bypasses DNS entirely and shows whether the MTA accepts mail and delivers locally.

telnet 1.2.3.4 25
EHLO test.example.com
MAIL FROM:<tester@yourdomain.com>
RCPT TO:<root@yourdomain.com>
DATA
Subject: test

test
.
QUIT

Sending to an IP-style address like root@[1.2.3.4] is allowed by SMTP but often rejected by MUAs or MTAs, so it is not a dependable general test; use the hosts-file trick or direct SMTP instead.

Also check basic gotchas: ensure port 25 is reachable (firewall/NAT/ISP blocks), look at your MTA log (common files: /var/log/maillog or /var/log/mail.log) for errors, and remember to plan MX/TTL and reverse-DNS/SPF changes before going live. ’s CentOS suggestion is fine if you prefer a standard distro, but either way these testing methods apply.

Recommended Answers

All 3 Replies

Member Avatar for jbennet

CentOS maybe?

Member Avatar for jbennet

and why on earth do you have a 250gb /usr partition? i hope you know that that /usr doesnt hold user data - thats stored in /home.

Member Avatar for chuckt3hnewb

and why on earth do you have a 250gb /usr partition? i hope you know that that /usr doesnt hold user data - thats stored in /home.

lol... sorry about that i was typing without thinking, yes my /usr is infact 20GB and my /home is 250GB i appologize for the mistake. But i am curious i have posted this on multiple threads and one person suggested that i send an e-mail to considering i have not updated the DNS records on AT&Ts Servers i am sure that would not work but would it work if i sent an e-mail to x ?

And i will have to look into CentOS.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.