How to test that the mail server is alive with Java?

Question

Is there a way with JavaMail API to check that the mail server used is alive ? If not, how do to it with Java code ?

Thanks by advance for your help.

Define "mail server is alive" state. – pingw33n Feb 15 '12 at 14:15 — pingw33n, Feb 15 '12 at 14:15

Sean Reilly · Accepted Answer · 2018-12-28T10:49:31.380

11

If you've got a reference to a Session instance, you could do the following:

Session s = //a JavaMail session I got from somewhere
boolean isConnected = s.getTransport("smtp").isConnected();

If the mail client is connected to the appropriate SMTP server, it usually means it's alive.

edited Dec 28 '18 at 10:49

answered Feb 15 '12 at 15:55

Sean Reilly

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in case you just created a new session and want to call `isConnected()`, initially, you have to call the method `getTransport("smtp").connect()`. – Radu Linu Apr 08 '19 at 15:03

Icarus · Answer 2 · 2012-02-15T15:44:54.510

5

From the JavaMail API, you could try sending an email and seeing if it was sent successfully.

From a connectivity standpoint, you could just ping it:

  InetAddress host = InetAddress.getByName("mailserver");
  System.out.println("host.isReachable(1000) = " + host.isReachable(1000));

edited Feb 15 '12 at 15:44

answered Feb 15 '12 at 14:19

Icarus

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Ok, so you confirm that the first solution is the only one : a server does not need to responde to ping to work correctly. – Denis R. Feb 15 '12 at 15:38
@DenisR. Correct, a server may very well ignore ICMP echo requests. – Icarus Feb 15 '12 at 15:40
It's not really the only possible solution. SMTP servers may very well ignore ICMP echo requests, but they don't ignore TCP connections to port 25. – Sean Reilly Feb 16 '12 at 10:54

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 08 '20 at 23:11

From this Link; you can use the following logic:

public boolean isAlive() throws MessagingException {
  session.setDebug(true);
  Transport transport = session.getTransport("smtp");
  transport.connect();
  if (transport.isConnected()) {
    transport.close();
    return true;
  }
  return false;
}

How to test that the mail server is alive with Java?

3 Answers3

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