Re: [MacPerl] Find SMTP server(s): nslookup?

["Paul J. Schinder" <schinder@pobox.com>]

At 1:34 PM +0200 3/31/99, Milivoj Ivkovic wrote:

} Now that I have the hostname, I can go on to the real purpose of this:
}try to find an SMTP server nearby.
}
} Of course, I'll check Net::Config and try to connect to localhost on port
}25. But what else can I do?
}
} Does Net::DNS work on Macs? (It doesn't on Win95).

Yes, it works, but don't count on it being installed.  It requires that
there be a "/etc/resolv.conf", which isn't a real problem, except MacPerl
users don't usually have one.  You have to construct one and point Net::DNS
at it.

}
} Would some Macs have environment variables like $ENV{MAILHOST} set?

Mine does, but that's because I use MailTools.  In general, no.

}
} And of course, I would like to find the MX records for the local domain.
}WinNT and Linux are easy: `nslookup ....`. What about Macs? Would it have
}implemented `nslookup` as with `hostname`?

No.  There are programs that do DNS queries, but you can't count on them
being installed, and you'd have to learn enough about AppleEvents to get
the answer out of them.  The program I use does not have any way of doing
MX queries (only does A); I'd use Net::DNS if I needed to do an MX lookup
here.

}
} Or would some Macs have such a command (I read something about Unix tools
}in a new Mac OS)?

Sure, on Mac OS X server.  But the number of people willing to spend $500
to run it on the limited number of models that will run it are few.  And
they're probably running 5.005_03 or 5.005_5? rather than MacPerl in the
blue box anyway.  Those you treat as BSD boxes, because in essence that's
what they are.

Since I've tested Mail::Sendmail multiple times, and edited test.pl, I've
always thought what you should do is have the test simply prompt the user
and ask for the address to send the test to and the server address.  The
user may not know, but if he doesn't, you probably won't be able to find
out from the settings the same user has put into various other pieces of
software.  Ordinarily I hate prompting software, but here you need only two
things, and the test is run only once for each release.

-----
Paul J. Schinder
schinder@pobox.com

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