[Info-vax] "SEND MAIL" doesn't send mail, mail stays in queue

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2018-01-23 16:16:18 +0000, Scott Dorsey said:

> You have telnet as a tool to check connectivity.  You can telnet into 
> port 25 of your ISP's mail forwarder.  You can telnet into port 143 of 
> their IMAP server.  You can use telnet to make sure that you're talking 
> to the correct server and that all connections between you and the 
> server are intact.
> --scott

Testing which should be automatic within the startup — connect and 
determine if the specified server is accessible, and what SMTP options 
are available — and test again when the connections go sideways.

We cannot depend on the presence of a telnet client.  Those are getting 
removed as part of security upgrades.  Yes, nc or netcat can replace 
telnet for testing here.   But OpenVMS lacks those.

Nor can we depend on the folks maintaining the OpenVMS systems having 
the knowledge and skills necessary to debug failed connections.  Sure.  
We used to.  Some still do.   But that's not the world we're in now.  
New folks have other things to learn, and other situations to deal 
with, and new folks — new customers, BTW — are inherently not familiar 
with the platform.   And even for the skilled and experienced folks, 
having the mail server log a "is this really a mail server you've asked 
me to connect to?" saves them time and effort.

New folks and new-to-the-tool folks (and OpenVMS hobbyists, here) are 
far and away the best folks to test user interfaces, too.   Developers 
can be exceptionally bad at creating user interfaces and diagnostics 
and APIs, unfortunately.







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