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Verify email addresses existence...

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:16 pm
by Sacapuss
Hi !

How can i, by script, to verify its existence, 'ping' an email address ?

Thanx for your help !

PS: verifier l'existence des adresses electroniques...

J'ai ecrit un formulaire qui permet au visiteur de nous envoyer un mail ( voir http://lamaisonbrulee.chez.tiscali.fr/index.php?ecrire ).

J'ai ecrit un certain nombre de filtres qui verifient certains aspects du format de l'adresse, comme vous pouvez le constater a la lecture du code-source de la page indiquee ci-dessus.

Avant de soumettre le formulaire, je voudrais verifier que l'adresse que le visiteur a indiquee comme sienne existe bien.

Comment faire ?

Merci de votre aide !

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:20 pm
by Burrito
you can't...and thank god, otherwise spammers would have a wide open door.

best thing you can do is try to send an email and see if it bounces.

Interestig stuff !!!

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:08 pm
by Sacapuss

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:15 pm
by John Cartwright
Checking the dns of the domain will not verify that the email exists, only the server.
Although it is a step in the right direction, there is no solid way to detect if the email address exists, or is active for that matter.

You could include a small 1px by 1px image along with your email and check if there was a request for that image, but that requires HTML to be activated in the email client, which more often than not HTML is disabled in emails unless configured otherwise.

And the VRFY function ???

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:21 pm
by Sacapuss
And the VRFY function ???

"Contrairement a RCPT TO, VRFY outrepasse le login MX et verifie bien l'existance d'un mail. Meme mieux que cela, il verifie aussi les ALIAS"

Re: And the VRFY function ???

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:27 pm
by Roja
Sacapuss wrote:And the VRFY function ???
It is widely *disabled* on virtually all installations because spammers abused it. Sendmail and postfix both by default do not check a users mailbox to respond to VRFY by default.

ie, its useless and not used, thanks to spammers.

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:36 pm
by John Cartwright
As I mentioned before there is no *SOLID* way to detect if an email address exists. I Suggest you read the user comments of the script you posted which explains the downsides. A lot of it really depends on server configurations. VRFY from what I have gathered is usually disabled anyways..

Edit | Damn, next time I shouldn't stop in the middle of post to get food

Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 12:42 am
by Sacapuss
Thanx for your answers !

Let's say i go on for the fun !

I tried to have the http://www.phpcs.com/codes/VERIFICATION ... 22532.aspx
script work.

Could you indicate me a good purchaser offering 'fsockopen', please ?

Thanx for your help !