UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I am running 2 Unix machines and trying to use IMAP.pm/Simple.pm perl modules to exchange mails between 2 systems.
Mail exchanges is through SMTP(for sending the mail) and IMAP(for retrieving the mails).

Somehow it's not working So wanted to check where the packets are and what is their path. I was thinking of using tcpdump but not sure which options to use to track packets between those 2 systems. and to check if the mails are going out of one system and whether mails are coming in another system. Please advice.

Thanks

Code:

tcpdump -i <interface> src host <hostname or ip of host1> dst host <hostname or ip of host2> port 25 or 143

Optionally you can use the "-s", "-v", "-vv" or "-vvv" option depending on the info you need.

If you want the analyze the traffic in some application like Ethereal you can use the "-w" option as well.

Thanks,

I'm using ethereal now and want to understand the SMTP messages but not able to see what is in there. It says "Message Body" in upper window but how to see what is there in that message ?

Hard to explain here how Ethereal works. Best you read the documentation that comes with it.