Category: Infrastructure

Testing an SMTP Service using telnet

http://www.facebook.com/widgets/like.php?href=https://nicholasrogoff.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/testing-an-smtp-service-using-telnet/

Here’s a quick way to manually test your SMTP service.

The best plan is to run this test on the server first (ensure that localhost or 127.0.0.1 is allowed to access the service) and then from a remote client next.

Follow these steps

(the response examples are those returned against a Windows 2008 R2 Server SMTP Service):

  1. Type Telnet <server name or IP> 25 at a command prompt, and then press ENTER.

    The output should look something like:
    220     CP5-15164 Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 7.5.7600.16601 ready at  Fr
    i, 16 Sep 2011 11:23:30 +0100

  2. Type ehlo, and then press ENTER.

    The output resembles the following: 
    250-CP5-15164 Hello [127.0.0.1]
    250-TURN
    250-SIZE 2097152
    250-ETRN
    250-PIPELINING
    250-DSN
    250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
    250-8bitmime
    250-BINARYMIME
    250-CHUNKING
    250-VRFY
    250 OK

  3. Type mail from:email@domain.com, and then press ENTER.

    The output resembles the following:
    250 2.1.0 email@domain.com….Sender OK

  4. Type rcpt to:youremail@domain.com, and then press ENTER.

    The output resembles the following:
    250 2.1.5 youremail@domain.com

  5. Type Data, and then press ENTER.

    The output resembles the following:
    354 Start mail input; end with <CRLF>.<CRLF>

  6. Type Subject:Test # subject, and then press ENTER two times.
  7. Type Test # body, and then press ENTER.
  8. Press ENTER, type a period (.), and then press ENTER.

    The output resembles the following:
    250 2.6.0 <CP5-151641XvpFVjCRG00000007@CP5-15164> Queued mail for delivery

  9. Type quit, and then press ENTER.

    The output resembles the following:
    221 2.0.0 CP5-15164 Service closing transmission channel

Windows Server Backup – Can’t handle greater than 2TB Volumes

I have just discovered that Windows Server Backup on Windows server 2008 R2 is incapable of backing up any volume 2TB or over. This, it turns out, is due to a VHD file limit. Backup essentially creates a VHD for each volume in the backup, which is great for recovery, but causes this annoying problem.

The not very helpful message you will receive if you try a full server backup when one of the volumes is too large is

“Volumes larger than 2088958 megabytes cannot be protected.”

 

The work-around is to not do full volume backups, but make your selection of folders. Choose ‘Custom’ backup configuration and then just select all the folders on the volume that is too large.

 

Technorati Tags: ,,