Looking for a test mail generator (unthreaded)

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Tue, Sep 09, 2008 at 10:39:56AM -0400, Stephen Swaney wrote:
> Simply setup another mail hub with test accounts.  A simple sendmail server
> delivering to local users would work just fine.
> 
> The use Roundhouse to duplicate the feed. The feed goes first to your real
> mail hub for delivery as normal.
> 
> Send the duplicate feed to the test server which should be configured to 1)
> send test messages to the test mail hub and 2) dev-null the rest.
> 
> Seems this would be simple to set up and meet your requirements.

But it doesn't, and please allow me to recap why, Juan Moore-Thyme :-)

My problem is that I want a repeatable, predictable test, where *I do not
have to spend hours figuring out what the EXPECTED results are*.  If I
use the real mail feed, that's what I'll have to do -- or at least, I'll
have to analyse whether the two mail servers are reacting the same *way*
to that mail feed, and if not, whether the new reaction is better or
worse.

If I can generate 50 messages that are, roughly, all the same every time
(modulo a "batch number" in the message-ID maybe) *and that I know what
the expected results are*, then all I have to do is look in the expected
target places, and check messages off a check list.

"All the messages from 00-09 should be in my mailbox.
All the message from 10-19 should be in the postmaster mailbox.
All the messages from 20-29 should be in the spam logs.
All the messages from 30-39 should be in the AV logs.
All the message from 40-49 should be in the mailer logs as having tried
to generate *valid* no-backscatter bounces."

And that way I don't have to analyse because I did that before I
generated the 50 message bodies.

IMO, this approach is critical to finding out what you actually need to
know, without tearing your hair out.  I'm just not a good enough coder to
do it from scratch.

I see I may have to add "yet" to that.  :-)

How are the python email libraries these days?

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
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