Testing SMTP Server from the command line

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We are going to assume that your server is Windows Server 2008 R2, although these steps will work on Server 2003 also. Another assumption is that you have the telnet client installed. If you don’t have it installed follow the steps in this post and then follow these instructions:

1. Fire up the command prompt and type telnet:

C:\Users\admin>telnet

2. At the telnet prompt, type set LocalEcho then press ENTER:

Welcome to Microsoft Telnet Client


Escape Character is 'CTRL+]'


Microsoft Telnet>set LocalEcho

3. Then type open localhost 25 and then press ENTER.

Welcome to Microsoft Telnet Client


Escape Character is 'CTRL+]'


Microsoft Telnet>set LocalEcho


Local echo on


Microsoft Telnet>open localhost 25

The output will look similar to this:

220 mail.vsysad.com Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 7.5.7601.17514 ready at Fri, 23 Aug 2013 01:02:03 +0000

4. Type helo me and then press ENTER. You should receive a 250 response from the SMTP Server meaning that it has accepted your command:

helo me


250 mail.vsysad.com Hello [127.0.0.1]

5. Then type the mail from:[email protected] – obviously fill in the email address you are actually sending from and then press ENTER. The output will be similar to the below:

mail from:[email protected]


250 2.1.0 [email protected] OK

6. Type rcpt to:[email protected] – the address you are sending to and then press ENTER.

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The output will be similar to the below:

rcpt to:[email protected]


250 2.1.5 [email protected]

7. Type Data and then press ENTER, resulting in the following:

Data


354 Start mail input; end with <crlf>.</crlf>

8. Type Subject:This is a test email and then hit ENTER twice. Then type This is a test email being sent via telnet and hit ENTER. Hit ENTER again, then type a full stop (.), and then hit ENTER once more:

Subject:This is a test email


This is a test email being sent via telnet


.

9. The resulting output would be similar to this:

250 2.6.0  Queued mail for delivery

It means that an email has been generated and is in the queue and is ready to be delivered.

10. Now that you have finished, type quit and the connection to the SMTP Server will be closed:

quit


221 2.0.0 mail.vsysad.com Service closing transmission channel


Connection to host lost.

A screenshot of all the commands being run is below:

That’s it. Now go to your email account and verify that the email has arrived successfully. In my case I received the email below to, for example, a Gmail account:

Method 2 – PowerShell

The PowerShell method is much less tedious and is my recommended way of sending email via the command line on Windows.

Assuming that PowerShell is installed on your server, launch the console and simply run the command below, ensuring that you complete the sending and receiving email addresses plus the subject and body text:

PS C:\Users\admin> Send-MailMessage -SMTPServer localhost -To [email protected] -From [email protected] -Subject "This is a test email" -Body "Hi Japinator, this is a test email sent via PowerShell"

The above command sent an email to your Gmail account, a screenshot of the email generated is below:

The PowerShell method is far easier to use. You can save the command in a .ps1 file and run it on demand whenever you need to test sending/routing of mail.

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