Trouble receiving mail? Installing a new mail server? Need to make sure all your email servers are accessible?

Experienced network managers have long plodded through DNS queries, making sure that MX records matched A records which matched IP addresses. Then they checked SMTP ports to make sure the servers were open for business…

This can be a fairly time-consuming and error-prone process, especially if you or your email vendor, sport 11 mail servers, like IBM… Or two MX records that point to 15 hosts, like 3com.com… Or five MX records pointing to 18 IP addresses, some of which are only for outbound email, like sun.com.

Mail Server Profiler, Sample Output
[Mail Server Profiler Screenshot; Email Battles.]

Email service can even be a challenge for single-server shops. All too often, less experienced administrators either call their consultant, switch suppliers, or tell their users, “That’s the way it is. Get used to it.”

That’s why the builder of email firewall trimMail Inbox (our sponsor) produced Mail Server Profiler, its free web-based tool.

Simply type in the domain name you want to check. Mail Server Profiler tracks down all its mail servers and checks their SMTP ports to tell you which servers are listening for mail, and which servers are not.

Then Mail Server Profiler produces a profile of your mail server setup, along with insights into possible sources of any mail delivery problems.

“We have used Mail Server Profiler internally to help customers solve mail problems for a long time,” said trimMail Tech Support Manager Aaron Gillette, “But now, we hope we’ve polished it up enough for end-users. Mail Server Profiler should help anybody sort out mail delivery problems, no matter what their skill level is, or how many mail servers they have.”

Mail Server Profiler Beta is offered as a free service at Email Battles. All users are welcome to work with it. All comments will be considered, as the developers work to extend Mail Server Profiler’s functions and usability.

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