Telnet - SMTP Commands (sending mail using telnet)

(View a SMTP conversation at CSA mail server)

In order to access your mailbox you will need 3 things:

An active internet connection (an embarrasing stage to miss sometimes!)

The address of a mail server capable of relaying for you - usually provided by your dialup provider (e.g. mail.domain.ext)

A valid email address (e.g. mail@domain.ext)

The first thing to do is to open a connection from your computer to your mail server.

telnet mail.domain.ext 25

You should receive a reply like:

Trying ???.???.???.???...

Connected to mail.domain.ext.

Escape character is '^]'.

220 mail.domain.ext ESMTP Sendmail ?version-number?; ?date+time+gmtoffset?

You will then need to delcare where you are sending the email from:

HELO local.domain.name - dont worry too much about your local domain name although you really should use your exact fully qualified domain name as seen by the outside world the mail server has no choice but to take your word for it as of RFC822-RFC1123.

This should give you:

250 mail.domain.ext Hello local.domain.name [loc.al.i.p], pleased to meet you

Now give your email address:

MAIL FROM: mail@domain.ext

Should yeild:

250 2.1.0 mail@domain.ext... Sender ok

If it doesn't please see possible problems.

Now give the recipients address:

RCPT TO: mail@otherdomain.ext

Should yeild:

250 2.1.0 mail@otherdomain.ext... Recipient ok

If it doesn't please see possible problems.

To start composing the message issue the command DATA