Preparing to send and receive mail to the Internet

Use these steps to ensure that your system is ready to send mail to and receive mail from the Internet or another private SMTP network.

Procedure

  1. Make sure that you have a connection to the Internet via an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or a direct connection.
  2. Use the Ping command to test the connectivity between the SMTP-enabled server and any external host to which it connects. Test the connection between machines from which messages will be sent and the servers from which you send mail to the outside world, such as your ISP. Ping tests only the accessibility of the host, not the existence or proper configuration of SMTP.
  3. Define a list of the inbound Internet domain names by which your organization is known. In some cases, a company may have multiple Internet domain names. Enter these names as aliases in the Global domain document.
  4. Make sure that the DNS is set up to include all the Internet domain names that your company uses.
  5. If your company uses a mail relay or firewall, obtain the host name.