Summary

This watch type allows monitoring of an SMTP mail server to ensure that connections can be successfully established, to monitor Response Time, and to verify transactions between the monitor and the mail server.  The results are analyzed by WebWatchBot.

Functionality

• Reports response time for entire SMTP transaction.

• Log-in to mail server

• Send live test email through mail server or execute SMTP commands only

• Logs SMTP status codes and most importantly failures.

• Supports the ability to save entire transaction to disk or log file.

Why Use this Watch Type?

The SMTP Watch Type is often used to determine if a mail server is available for connections and available to complete a transaction.  The two measurements are Response Time - the amount of time that it takes to connect and the amount of time to complete a transaction - and command execution – whether the SMTP commands executed are what was expected.  An increase in Response Time may indicate network congestion or an overall increase in customer use of the SMTP server.  Failure in the SMTP command execution may indicate an error in configuration or a network problem.

What to monitor

Use the SMTP Watch Type to test SMTP mail servers.  It can be used to ensure that a mail server is reachable, and that the Response Time is within allowable limits for both connection and total transaction time.  It can be used to ensure that SMTP commands are executed are producing expected output.

SMTP Settings

Fields and Buttons

To Address

      An email address for testing purposes to address the test message to

From Address

      An email address for testing purposes to address the test message from

Subject

      An email address for testing purposes to address the test message from

Message Body

      An email address for testing purposes to address the test message from

Authentication

Username - Sets the SMTP server authentication login id. Some SMTP servers require login before sending email.

Password - Sets the SMTP server authentication password. Some SMTP servers require login before sending email.

Don't Send Message...

A connection and SMTP commands are sent to the SMTP server but no message is actually sent.  In most cases the message does not need to be sent in order to satisfactorily test an SMTP server, however, in other cases you may want to have the message sent to ensure that delivery is completely successful.

Test

The current settings will be used to run a test on the watch item but will not affect the overall success.  By clicking this button, the "Test Watch Item" dialog box will appear.