UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

I am using mailx command to send emails from the Unix command prompt. Whenever email is not sent it is not giving me any message "Email not sent" or failure delivery notice for the wrong email addresses. When I give correct email address I am able to receive them correctly.

Can anyone please help me.

You can't tell if an address is incorrect until you get a bounce -- which can take anything from minutes to days. mailx can't tell at all, because it does send successfully, and fails 4 or 5 mail servers down the chain.

So there's not really any help for it. That's just the way email works.

I gave a wrong email address but it is a valid email address according to RFC 822 standards. When I try with my gmail, I get a mailer failure deamon notice. but when I give the same wrong email address on Unix, I am not getting the failure notice.

If not mailx, can you please tell me what Unix command should I use.

Thanks for you help.

The same thing happens both times.

1) mail client sends the email.
2) mail server A accepts the message. The client disconnects.

What happens afterwards isn't detected by the mail clilent.

3) server A passes to mail server B.
...
n) server Y passes to server Z.
n+1) Destination mail server reached.
n+2) Whoops! There's nobody here by that name!
n+3) Send a bounce email to server Y.
n+4) Server Y passes bounce to server X.
...
m) Server B passes bounce to server A.
m+1) Server A receives the bounce.
m+2) Server A receives bounce email, stores it in the users' inbox.

This process can take minutes or days. Something along the chain might decide to wait and retry a couple times.

gmail does not know you're sending to an invalid email address.

gmail does not know the email didn't get through.

gmail just receives a bounce message, long after the fact, like everything else.



So there's not really any help for it. That's just the way email works. You need to start pawing through received mail to get bounces, and how to do that depends on 1) whether your server receives email at all, 2) how it does so and what it does with it.

Thanks for you help.

Is there any way that I can receive a failure delivery notice using Unix commands ?

You need to start pawing through received mail to get bounces, and how to do that depends on 1) whether your server receives email at all, 2) how it does so and what it does with it.

So, this needs more information on your server.