https://github.com/aledbf/emailvalidator

A web microservice to check for email address validity against MX/A records and the SMTP server
https://github.com/aledbf/emailvalidator

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A web microservice to check for email address validity against MX/A records and the SMTP server

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/aledbf/emailvalidator
• Owner: aledbf
• Created: 2014-09-16T19:55:34.000Z (over 10 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2014-07-15T09:15:41.000Z (over 10 years ago)
• Last Synced: 2024-10-14T15:56:52.460Z (3 months ago)
• Size: 250 KB
• Stars: 0
• Watchers: 3
• Forks: 6
• Open Issues: 0
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md

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README

        
# EmailValidator

EmailValidator is a simple node.js helper library to check an email address's validity without sending a single email.

## Why?

If you send commercial email you know getting your email delivered is very hard - even if you follow all the rules. A high bounce rate (above 3%) can cause your delivery rates to drop dramatically. By validating email addresses that your team may collect over the phone and hand enter into a CRM you can protect yourself and decrease your bounce rate. Thereby increasing your email marketing effectiveness.

## Features

* Very basic email syntax check. 

* Check for valid MX records

* If no MX records are found, check for valid A record

* Verify MX/A has a listening email server

* Redis used as a cache to improve speed and avoid bombarding mail servers

## Risks

It is possible that if you query a single provider too much that the email provider will block you. We've implemented a Redis cache to mitigate this.

It is possible that you perform a validity check when an ISP's SMTP server is down, inaccurately noting it as offline.

To do: Right now we just query the first MX record instead of all of them. The code should be refactored to loop through each MX record asynchronously. Anyone care to help?

## Installation

setup redis

`./src/redis-server /usr/redis-2.8.9/redis.conf`

We'll just use the default port. If you have something custom, then you'll need to configure the connection.

Next, install the package

`npm install emailvalidator`

## Using as a node module

In the simplest form you can just call:

```javascript

var options = {

    externalIpAddress: '93.184.216.119', 

    redisPort: 6379, 

    redisHost: '127.0.0.1'

}

require('emailvalidator').checkEmailAddress('[email protected]', options, callback);

```

The parameters are optional, but should you lave a blank externalIpAddress you may affect the accuracy of the program.

To lookup your external IP address, just call

```javascript

require('emailvalidator').getExternalIp(callback)

```

the callback is `function(error, response)`

the response object is:

```javascript

{

    "email": "[email protected]",

    "valid": false,

    "reason": "no server to receive mail. cannot connect to mail exchanger"

}

```

## Using as a Microservice

Built into this module is a webserver that responds to GET requests on /:email

To start this webserver automatically, just run `npm start`

Otherwise, you can run it programatically by calling 

```javascript

var options = {

    // defaults to 3000

    port: integer,

    // if null/empty we will look this up automatically

    externalIpAddress: '',

    // defaults to 127.0.0.1

    redisHost: integer,

    // defaults to 6379

    redisPort: integer

}

require('emailvalidator').startWebServer(options)

```