(no subject)

[nolly]

I occasionally wish there was a way to ping an email address. I don't want to actually email the person; I just want to determine if the address is stil valid.

Comments

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Ah, for the days when almost everyone had a UNIX account, and you could just see if theier machine would accept a "whois" for any given username.

smtp provides for this.

[trysha.livejournal.com]

telnet their.mail.server.com 25
helo yourdomain.com
expn that_persons_email

or

vrfy that_persons_email

this sometimes works.
most folks turn that off these days though

Re: smtp provides for this.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know. And since the addresses I want to ping are often ones on large commercial providers, this is even less likely to work.

[stannate.livejournal.com]

Is finger turned on?

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I doubt it. We're talking major commercial provider here. (Well, in the current case.)

Re:

[stannate.livejournal.com]

Hrm. Finger was the first thing that came to my mind. I'm still not that Unix-sharp to think of an alternative.

[johno.livejournal.com]

finger, whois and vrfy are all turned off in most cases now days.

You could get a disposable freebee account and send a blank or inocouse email and see if it bounces.