[NTLUG:Discuss] verifying delivery to a specific recipient with sendmail

[David Camm]

all the forms processing transactions i've written in perl use the
following pattern to check the validity of the FORMAT of an email
address:

/\w+((\.|\-)\w+)*\@\w+((\.|\-)\w+)+/

this works quite well to ensure that the address is of a reasonable
form.

of course, users will make all sorts of other errors when entering their
address, which a pattern cannot catch.

i've been trying to find a way of using sendmail to actually attempt
delivery and capture that result. after poring through the bat book
(makes a great doorstop) and the man pages, one discovers the -bv
switch, which, it is claimed, will verify delivery of a message.  when
one tries this as in:

[root ~]# /usr/sbin/sendmail -bv foobar at hotmail.com

sendmail responds that the address is deliverable like:

foobar at hotmail.com... deliverable: mailer esmtp, host hotmail.com., user
foobar at hotmail.com

apparently, the definition of deliverable is to the target MTA, not to
the user.

i'd like to save my customers some aggrevation and reduce the number of
e-mails bounced back to root.

does anyone know how a delivery test to the intended recipient might be
done?

thanks! 

david camm
advanced web systems
www.advwebsys.com