ping a mail server?

[daviddoria]

Often my mail breaks - and I don't know if its my fault or the server's fault.

Even when it's working, I can't ping it - ie

ping mail.comcast.net

doesn't ever reply - even though I can check mail with pop3 from mail.comcast.net

Is there a better way to see if the server is "alive"?

Thanks,

Dave

[scottro]

Many servers block pings. You can check if pop is working by doing
telnet mail.comcast.net 25

That's teletting in on port 25. You probably see OK POP ready. (After that, type quit to exit it.)

With many servers, that works for smtp too, doing telnet <server_name> 25 but that's not working, at least from here. Nor is doing telnet port 465 (for smtp over ssl.)

[savage]

Many ISPs have separate servers to receive and to send.

smtp.comcast.net responds to 'telnet smtp.comcast.net 25', being in the UK I have no idea if this is the official SMTP server that you should use, but there's no real harm in trying it. The worst it'll do is just refuse to send.

[scottro]

I had only tried mail.comcast.net. Let's blame David as that's what he wrote.

However, I just now tried smtp.comcast.net and did get a response on port 25.

[savage]

I'd put money on them being separate now you've confirmed too, not much money though

[stevea]

Rathre than telnet, try nmap
nmap mail.comcast.net -p25,110,995

[daviddoria]

I get a response from the smtp server (telnet smtp.comcast.net 25). I had to use port 110 for the mail.comcast.net.

Thanks for the replies.
Dave