Looking for a test mail generator

[Glenn Steen]

2008/9/8 Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com>:
> To test a new installation before a cutover, I'm trying to find (out
> whether anyone has written) a program that can send a bunch of email to a
> SMTP server, logging what it does (both logical and session level), so
> that I can check that the results are what they should be.
>
> Optimally, I'd like something that worked like this:
>
> Provide it with 4 or 5 pieces of random spam, and 4 or 5 pieces of ham,
> and have it try to -- in random order -- send each of the message bodies
> to a) one or more provided valid addresses and b) one or more random
> non-valid addresses on the provisioned domain, and c) one or more
> completely random addresses.
>
> The goal, of course, is to make sure that what should pass through passes
> through, what should bounce bounces, what shouldn't backscatter doesn't,
> and what should deliver does.
>
> Has anyone already written this?  I'm sure perl or python provides the
> modules, but I'm not good enough at either to do it myself.  I could
> probably hack around something that does 60-70% of it into what I wanted,
> though.
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
This is not the first time this has cropped up... Generally the
consesus has so far been that nothing beats the real thing... namely
your current incoming mailflow. One would base the approach to do
something like this (stress test/validation) on an appropriate tool
for your MTA to split off the incoming mailflow ("copy" it) to the new
machine... Something like roundhouse for sendmail, or always_bcc for
Postfix. Care has to be taken that you don't actually deliver anything
from the new box though:-).
If you trawl the list archives (via gmane, perhaps) you should be able
to find Jules excellent summary of "what's involved and how to do it".
Generally speaking... a lot of work;).

If all you need is a few (10 was it) "synthetic" messages... Why then
some handcrafting and telnet is all you really need;-).

Cheers
-- 
-- Glenn
email: glenn < dot > steen < at > gmail < dot > com
work: glenn < dot > steen < at > ap1 < dot > se