In the recent upgrade of my server that also host this website, I noticed a couple of spam email could be useful.

(I'm not asking to be spammed though, so please deter that from your mind )

The common elements of Internet servers (usually) consists of at least web and mail server.

Creating a web server and dumping a content into it is considered the simplest task so far. Only when the content start demanding a couple of things, then the maintenance start to become challenging.

The same goes with email, it is quite easy to setup a mail server, except when you start deciding "should I use POP or IMAP", or "which SMTP server should I use that will do bla bla and bla ...". And once those two thoughts come in place, then some admin start hitting 'panic' button because they have too many choices in place!

I'm not going to put forward recommendation in using this and that software for your web and mail server, as it will be back to you on how comfortable you are dealing with those server with the kind of application you choose.

Now fast forward a little bit, lets consider you already have those web and mail server installed, you telnet-ed to it and it worked, you open up your browser and it shows your 'It works!' page, you create an email from your account sent to your account and maybe some of your free webmail account somewhere, so what's next? (yes, I use telnet to test whether those servers accepts connections or not).

It sounds really simple right? It is! ... and that's after you put tons of required dependencies in place (DNS server, logger, etc etc).

Some admins that already use to doing this will have the steps automated in their brains. But to some newibies, this could be a killer task that makes them decide to write a resignation letter

We also need to face the facts that: even though your server exist and be reachable from the Internet, it doesn't mean the freshly installed web and email server will be receiving requests for either one of that basic service

So, after a couple of (10+) years that I dealt with this kind of task, I sometimes wish that there is someone out there still sending spam that accidentally hit the IP address of the server that I just 'created' (... and once again, please do not spam me purposely). Because of that kind of 'incident', we could be assure that our mail server is actually receiving email and send it into our beloved inbox.

Thus, a couple of tests that we could do in order to find out whether our email server is working or not could be based on the following tests:

• Check that the email server is running (mostly the SMTP service)
• Do a basic telnet smtp.host.yourdomain 25 and make sure it shows something
• Do ehlo mail.test.com in the telnet session from the point above and see whether your SMTP responded to anything
• Compose an email from that telnet session if needed, other wise (if you'd like to fast forward and use email client, that will save you time. But if it doen't work, then you must go back to test that telnet thingy up there and compose an email from there instead)
• Compose email in the following pair: your account to your account (internal account test), your account to another user's account (inter account, internal mail server test) and also the reply, your account to outside email address (to test that your email server can send email to outside), outside email address to your account (to test that your email server can receive email and deliver it to your inbox)

Up to that point, if things goes alright, then you can take a short break to refill your coffe cup
Then, the next part will be any of the following:

• Spam filter - especially if you start seeing those penis enlargement, viagra, stock and other silly email that you don't want in your inbox
• Virus scanner - yeah, you maybe using a top notch email client, but your other user could simply click on those harmful-yet-tempting destructive program that will bring all porns into their computer, or maybe turn their computer into something unexpected, say a mashed potatoes?
• Auto reply - this features are mostly available in many mail server, or even built from the operating system itself to honor certain vacation file settings. However, it is worth trying this, especially if you plan to take a vacation several days after you just built your email server (ha! trying to run away are ya?)
• Email access, be it from email client or web (and by web, I'm referring to another tons of confusing choices as to which webmail client will be 'okay'. Or maybe you wanted to use your free email account out there to be your webmail client? (Hey, if you have more than 100 users to use your email, try to be in touch with Google. They might have offered you a custom-made gmail interface for your organization. Don't ask me who to call or how much it'll cost)