10.31.07

TMail 1.1.0 Gem Released

Posted in E-mail, Ruby at 9:00 am by Željko Filipin

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I have been using TMail for testing e-mail functionality of web application that I test for a long time. But, development of that library stopped at 2004. Today I found out that it is again in development. Take a look at it’s web site and RubyForge project site.

10.15.07

Troubleshooting SMTP Issues with Telnet

Posted in E-mail at 9:00 am by Željko Filipin

I have really bad memory. I have to write this down. I just know I will forget it, but need it later.

I had to find out why one user did not receive any mail from us. I tried the usual things, but all looked fine. My developer suggested to troubleshoot it with telnet. I found good article about troubleshooting SMTP issues. What I did:

  • open command prompt
  • find server
    >nslookup -querytype=MX [domain]
    …
    Non-authoritative answer:
    [domain] MX preference = [integer], mail exchanger = [subdomain].[domain]
    …
  • connect to that machine with telnet
    >telnet [subdomain].[domain] 25
  • good
    220 SMTP Proxy Server Ready
  • not so good
    554 Transaction Failed Listed in connection control deny list

02.07.07

Testing E-mail: The Code

Posted in E-mail at 6:12 pm by Željko Filipin

Lately I have been testing e-mail functionality of web application. This is the fifth post about that experience. Last week I wrote about lessons learned.

I have written a little framework that helps me with testing e-mail.

To use it, you will have to install Ruby, Tmail and SMTP server.

Then download mail.zip (2,20 KB) and extract it. No installation required. There are even some unit tests (unit_tests.rb) and example code (usage.rb).

Send mail.

Check if application sent mail that you have expected.

For now, mail that is sent can only contain from, to, subject and body. While receiving, I only check from, to and subject.

This is code that I am really using every day.

Please understand that I am a tester, not a developer, and I know that this code could be better. Feel free to improve it. Post bug reports and your comments here.

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