How to test a mail server?

The_KiD · 11 Oct 2006 at 11:46

We have been looking at getting a new mail server for some time and have now downloaded a few trials of Exchange, Kerio and Mailtraq.

Obviously I cannot re-route all the companies mail to the server as this would be insane as we are only testing the server.

So how do I test it and make sure it is gonna work as we want it to?

leaskovski · 11 Oct 2006 at 11:57

Thats a hard one. You could try getting a pop3 connector for exchange and then setup one account, thus it would only get the emails for that. However, you woudln't be testing the server properly.

How about setting up a test email domain?

Pinkeyes · 11 Oct 2006 at 12:00

Can you set up an additional domain ?

so currently "company.co.uk" goes to the current mail server.

Could you set up "test.company.co.uk" up and route those to a different server ?

Uhtred · 11 Oct 2006 at 12:09

how about vmware

oddjob62 · 11 Oct 2006 at 12:38

Set up a test POP3 account in Outlook with the outgoing SMTP set to the IP of the mail server. Then you can send test emails to the mail server and see if it works.

csmager · 11 Oct 2006 at 13:57

Depends what you mean by 'test'. oddjob62's suggestion is easiest to test to see if it actually works.

Pinkeyes' suggestion of using a subdomain would be better if you want to test the setup in-situ for a sustained period of time to see what it's like to use.

The_KiD · 11 Oct 2006 at 14:39

Yeah I think we will try the subdomain route.

Cheers guys

zetec452 · 11 Oct 2006 at 16:31

I'd be interested to see what you think of Mailtraq.

The_KiD · 11 Oct 2006 at 19:45

I think from all the ones I looked at Mailtraq seems like it could be the winner.

Havent got the sub domain and server setup yet, so will keep you posed.

You a user of mailtraq already or thinking about getting it?

Una · 11 Oct 2006 at 19:49

Just add an addition MX record to your name server on a subdomain, think that should work.

zetec452 · 11 Oct 2006 at 19:55

The_KiD said:
You a user of mailtraq already or thinking about getting it?

The company I work for are resellers of mailtraq. We have over 100 servers with it on. A lovely program. It's all text file based, so if a server dieds you can set it up on anther server in about 10 mins.