Applications:Electronic Mail

(SMTP,POP,IMAP,MIME)

Presented by-Tarun Lall

Badrinath
Sai Kumar
Praveen
Electronic Mail

It is one of the most widely used and popular

applications.

Mail delivery differs fundamentally from other

uses of networks.

To handle delayed delivery mail systems use a

technique called spooling.
 Electronic Mail(Contd..)
OUTGOING MAIL CLIENT
SPOOL AREA (BACKGROUND TRANSFER)

USER SENDS TCP CONNECTION

MAIL
FOR OUTGOING MAIL
USER
INTERFACE
USER READS TCP CONNECTION
MAIL FOR INCOMING MAIL

MAILBOXES SERVER
FOR INCOMING MAIL (TO ACCEPT MAIL)
Mailbox Names and Aliases

Users specify recipients by giving pairs of

strings that identify the mail destination
machine name and mailbox address on that
machine.

The names used in such specifications are

independent other names assigned to machines.

Mail processing and forwarding.

Alias Expansion And Mail
Forwarding
Most mail forwarding software includes a mail
alias expansion mechanism.

Aliases increase mail system functionality and

convenience.

The set of recipients associated with an identifier

is called an electronic mailing list.
 An extension of mail system
ALIAS DATABASE

ALIAS EXPANSION AND FORWARDING

USER
INTERFACE OUTGOING MAIL SPOOL AREA
CLIENT (BACKGROUND
USER SENDS TRANSFER)
MAIL

USER READS
MAIL

MAILBOXES FOR INCOMING MAIL SERVER (TO ACCEPT MAIL)

 Relationship Of Internetworking and
Mail
Many commercial computer systems can forward
e-mail from sites that do not connect to the
Internet. How do these systems differ ?
A TCP/IP internet makes possible universal
delivery service.
Electronic mail systems built on TCP/IP are more
reliable than those built by arbitrary networks.
 The alternative form of e-mail delivery uses
mail gateways. In such systems the senders
machine does not contact the recipients m/c
directly but sends mails across one or more
intermediate machines that forward it.
Disadvantage
Introduce unreliability & delay
Advantage
Interoperability
 TCP/IP Standards For Electronic Mail
Service
TCP/IP divides its mail standard into two sets.
One standard specifies the format for mail messages.
The other specifies the details of electronic mail
exchange between two computers.
What do these standards accomplish?
These two standards make it possible to build mail
gateways that connect TCP/IP internets to some
other vendors mail delivery system, while still
using the same message format for both.
 The TCP/IP standard for mail messages
specifies the exact format of mail headers; it
leaves the the format of the body to the user.
TO

SUB
 Electronic Mail Addresses

There are several formats in which you could

specify mail addresses.
local-part@ domain-name
comer @ purdue.edu
Mail gate ways however make addresses more
complex for example consider address of the
following CSNET operated gateway
comer%purdue.edu @ relay.cs.net
 Once the mail reached machine relay.cs.net
the mail gateway software would extract the
local-part, change the % sign into a @ sign
and use result as the destination address to
forward the mail. In essence the sites act as
if the addresses were parenthesized
( comer%purdue.edu ) @ ( relay.cs.net )
 PSEUDO DOMAIN
ADDRESSES
To help solve the problem of multiple mail systems,each with its own e-
mail address format,a site can use domain-style names for all e-mail
addresses,even if the site does not use the domain name system.
example :
uucp-styleaddress@uucp
or [email protected]
The local mail forwarding software recognizes the special addresses and
translates them to address syntax required by the UUCP network
software.
From users perspective, the advantage is clear: all electronic addresses
have the same general format independent of the underlying
communication network used to reach the recipient.
but such addresses only work where local mailers
have been instructed to map them into appropriate
forms and only when the appropriate transport
mechanisms are available.
Even though psuedo-domain mail addresses have the
same form as domain names,they can only be used
with electronic mail-one cannot use the domain
name system to resolve a psuedo-address into an
underlying IP address.
 SIMPLE MAIL TRANSFER
PROTOCOL(SMTP)
In addition to message formats, the TCP/IP protocol suite
specifies a standard for exchange of mail between
machines.
The standard specifies the exact format of messages a
client on one machine uses to transfer mail to a server on
another.
SMTP focuses specifically on how the underlying mail
delivery system passes messages across an internet from
one machine to another.
 It does not specify how the mail system accepts mail from a user or how
the user interface presents the user with incoming mail.
Also it does not specify how mail is stored or how frequently the mail
system attempts to send messages.
communication between client and server consists of readable ASCII
text.
SMTP rigidly defines the command format, humans can easily read a
transcript of interactions between a client and server.
Initially a client establishes a reliable stream connection to the server and
waits for the server to send a 220 READY FOR MAIL message.
If the server is overloaded, it may delay sending the 220 message
temporarily.
Upon receipt of 220 message, the client sends a HELO command.
The end of line marks end of command.
The server responds by identifying itself.
 Once communication has been established,the sender can transmit one
or more mail messages, terminate the connection, or request the server
to exchange the roles of sender and receiver so messages can flow in
opposite direction.
The receiver must acknowledge each message. It can also abort the
entire connection or abort the current message transfer.
Mail transactions begin with a MAIL command that gives sender
identification as well as a FROM: field that contains the address to
which errors should be reported.
Response 250 means that all is well.The full response consists of the
text 250 OK.
After a successful MAIL command, the sender issues a series of RCPT
commands that identify recipients of mail message.
The recipient must acknowledge each RCPT command by sending 250
OK or by sending the error message 550 NO such user here.
 After all RCPT commands have been acknowledged, the sender issues a
DATA command. In essence, a DATA command informs the receiver that the
sender is ready to transfer a complete mail message.

The receiver responds with message 354 start mail input and specifies the
sequence of characters used to terminate the mail message. It consists of 5
characters: carriage return, line feed,period,carriage return, and line feed.
consider the following example:
suppose user smith at host Alpha.EDU sends a message to users
jones,green and brown at host Beta.GOV.
The SMTP client software on host Alpha.EDU contacts the SMTP server
software on host Beta.GOV and begins the exchange as shown:

S: 220 Beta.GOV Simple Mail Transfer Service Ready

C: HELO Alpha.EDU
S: 250 Beta.GOV
 C: MAIL FROM : <[email protected]>
S: 250 ok

C: RCPT To: <[email protected]>

S: 250 ok

C: RCPT To:<[email protected]>
S: 550 No Such User Here

C: RCPT To:[email protected]
S: 250 ok

C: DATA
S: 354 Start Mail input;end with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>
C: .sends body of mail message.
C: continues for as may lines as message contains
C: <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>
S: 250 ok
 C: QUIT
S: 221 Beta.GOV Service Closing transmission channel

SMTP is much more complex because if a user has moved, the server
may know the users new mailbox address. SMTP allows the server to
inform the client about the new address so the client can use it in future.
When informing the client about a new address, the server may choose
to forward the mail that triggered the message, or it may request that the
client take the responsibility for forwarding.
 Mail Retrieval
SMTP scheme- Server should remain ready
to accept e-mails all the time.
How can a user receive e-mail without a
permanent connection?
User assigned a mail box on computer that has
permanent internet connection.
User forms dialup connection and runs protocol
that receives messages from permanent
mailbox.
 Post Office Protocol
Protocol to transfer e-mail messages from mailbox
to local computer.
User invokes a POP3 client, which creates a TCP
connection to a POP3 server on the mailbox
computer.
Computer with permanent mailbox must run 2
servers-
SMTP( Accepts mail sent to user)
POP3 (Allows to extract messages from mailbox).
 IMAP4
Internet Message Access Protocol is an
alternative to POP3.
User runs a IMAP4 client that contacts the
server to retrieve messages.
IMAP4 allows user to dynamically create,
delete or rename mail boxes.
 MIME
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions are
defined for transmission of non-ASCII data.
It allows ordinary data to be encoded in
ASCII and transmitted in standard email.
MIME header specifies:
Version of MIME used.
Type of data being sent.
Encoding used to convert data to ASCII.
 MIME Multipart Messages
Four subtypes for multipart messages:
Mixed
Allows single message to contain multiple messages.
Possible to send text, graphics and sound in single
message.
Alternative
Allows single message to include multiple
representations of same data.
Useful when sending same message to multiple
recipients.
Subtypes for Multipart Message

Parallel
Permits message to include subparts that should be
viewed together(Like video and audio).
Digest
Permits a message to contain set of other messages.
E.g., collection of e-mail messages from a
discussion.
 Summary
E-mail uses TCP/IP paradigm.
SMTP- Defines how a mail system on one
machine transfers mail to server on another.
POP3- Specifies how user can retrieve
contents of a mailbox.
MIME- Provides a mechanism that allows
arbitrary data to be transmitted using SMTP.