SMTP
A presentation on simple mail transfer protocol
-Sriram babu T
CSE
FUNDAMENTALS
• SMTP is a communication protocol for electronic mail transmission.
• SMTP is a push protocol and is used to send the mail whereas POP
(post office protocol) or IMAP (internet message access protocol) is
used to retrieve those emails at the receiver’s side.
• SMTP is an application layer protocol.
• The client who wants to send the mail opens a TCP connection to the
SMTP server and then sends the mail across the connection. It listens
for a TCP connection from any client, the SMTP process initiates a
connection through port 25. After successfully establishing a TCP
connection the client process sends the mail instantly.
MODEL
COMPONENTS
• Mail User Agent (MUA)
• Mail Submission Agent (MSA)
• Mail Transfer Agent (MTA)
• Mail Delivery Agent (MDA)
• Mail User Agent (MUA): It is a computer application that helps you in sending and retrieving
mail. It is responsible for creating email messages for transfer to the mail transfer agent(MTA).
• Mail Submission Agent (MSA): It is a computer program that basically receives mail from a
Mail User Agent(MUA) and interacts with the Mail Transfer Agent(MTA) for the transfer of the
mail.
• Mail Transfer Agent(MTA): It is basically software that has the work to transfer mail from one
system to another with the help of SMTP.
• Mail Delivery Agent(MDA): A mail Delivery agent or Local Delivery Agent is basically a system
that helps in the delivery of mail to the local system.
WORKING PRINCIPLE
Communication between the sender and the receiver :
• The user agent(SENDER) prepares the message and sends it to the MTA. The
MTA’s responsibility is to transfer the mail across the network to the
receiver’s MTA. To send mail, a system must have a client MTA, and to
receive mail, a system must have a server MTA.
Sending Emails:
• Mail is sent by a series of request and response messages between the client
and the server. The message which is sent across consists of a header and a
body. The message body contains the actual information read by the receipt.
Receiving Emails:
• The user agent on the server-side checks the mailboxes if any information is
received, it informs the user about the mail. When the user tries to read the
mail it displays a list of emails with a short description of each mail in the
mailbox. By selecting any of the mail users can view its contents on the
terminal.
Advantages of SMTP
• It allows for bulk mailing.
• Low cost and wide coverage area.
• Offer choices for email tracking.
• Reliable and prompt email delivery.
Disadvantages of SMTP
• SMTP’s common port can be blocked by several firewalls.
• SMTP security is a bigger problem.
• If a message is longer than a certain length, SMTP servers may reject the
entire message.
• Sometimes delivery gets delayed because of back and forth processing
between the servers.
