I got the first example from the postfix documentation here: http://www.postfix.org/SASL_README.html so I tried what I originally posted: [root at mydomain ccc]# telnet 127.0.0.1 25 Trying 127.0.0.1... Connected to 127.0.0.1. Escape character is '^]'. EHLO MAIL FROM: me at gmail.com RCPT TO: me at gmail.com DATA testing from server . ^] So I go to this page and get an example of how to do this: http://www.freebsdwiki.net/index.php/SMTP,_testing_via_Telnet and follow the example: [root at mydomain john]# telnet 127.0.0.1 25 Trying 127.0.0.1... Connected to 127.0.0.1. Escape character is '^]'. HELO justtesting MAIL FROM: testing at gmail.com RCPT TO: testing at gmail.com DATA To: testing at gmail.com From: testing at gmail.com Subject: testing Date: Tu, Oct 2012 10:21:11 -0500 Testing . QUIT So I go to this page and get an example of how to do this: http://www.samlogic.net/articles/smtp-commands-reference.htm and follow the example: [root at mydomain john]# ps wax|grep smtp 18378 ? S 0:00 smtpd -n smtp -t inet -u -s 2 26426 ? S 0:00 smtpd -n 587 -t inet -u -s 2 30700 pts/0 S+ 0:00 grep smtp [root at mydomain john]# telnet 127.0.0.1 25 Trying 127.0.0.1... Connected to 127.0.0.1. Escape character is '^]'. EHLO mydomain.com MAIL FROM: <testing at gmail.com> RCPT TO: <testing at gmail.com> DATA testing . QUIT As you can see, my smtp is up. However, all of these just leave the shell hanging. None of them echo back anything from telnet, as I've seen in examples, such as this echo: ph34r# telnet localhost 25 Trying 127.0.0.1... Connected to localhost.localdomain. Escape character is '^]'. 220 ESMTP (That last line.) I've never gotten telnet to work. I've always just worked around it, but this time I want to check everything as I go along. Please advise. TIA, John