Casestudy 3rdIA Mail Architecture

Subject: Computer networks.
Semester: 7th A,B and C

Internal Assessment -III ACY-2022-23
Case study on application layer protocol.
E-mail application protocol: Email Architecture, SMTP POP3

IMAP and Connection establishment, data transfer and
connection termination.
In this article we will discuss the Email Architecture, study the different
protocols like SMTP “Simple Mail Transfer Protocol”, PoP3 “Post Office
Protocol”, and IMAP “Internet Mail Access Protocol”.
Email Architecture:
Email architecture consists of three components:
 User Agent (UA)

 Message Transfer Agent (MTA)
 Message Access Agent (MAA)
User Agent:
A user agent is a Package “or in simple words a program” of a software that
composes, Reads, Responds to, and forward messages. It also handles user
computers with local mailboxes.
Sending Mail:
In order to send a mail, the user creates mail through the UA which looks
very similar to Postal Mail.
Receiving Mail:
The User agent, or a timer, is triggered by the User. Where a user has mail,
the UA will notify the user with a notice if the user is ready to read the mail,
a list will be shown in which each line includes a description of a particular
message’s mailbox information.
Addresses:
A mail handling system must use a system address with unique addresses
to deliver mails. Each user has a unique email address which is selected the
time a person sign up for an email ID.
Mailing List or Group List:

Electronic mail allows for the one name, an alias, to represent several
different email addresses; this is called a mailing list. The system checks the
name of the recipient against the alias database whenever a message is to
be sent; if there is a mailing list for the defined alias, separate messages,
one for each entry in the list, must be prepared and given to the MTA.
Mail Transfer Agent “MTA”:

The actual mail transmission is done through MTAs. A system must have
the client MTA for sending mail, and a system must have a server MTA for
receiving mail. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol “SMTP” is the formal
protocol that defines the MTA client and server within the internet.
Message Access Agent “MAA”:

SMTP is used in the first and second phases of mail deliver. SMTP is not
involved in the third stage, however, as SMTP is a push protocol; it
transmits the client’s message to the server. The path of the bulk data
“messages” is from client to server, in other words. On the other hand, a
pull protocol is required to the third stage. The client must use the server to
pull messages. The direction from the server to the client for the bulk data
is the third stage that uses an agent for accessing messages. There are
currently two protocols for accessing messages.
Post Office Protocol version 3 “POP3” and Internet Mail Access Protocol
“IMAP”.
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP):

SMTP is used two times, between the sender and the sender’s mail server
and between the two mail servers. SMTP simply defines how commands
and responses must be sent back and forth between an MTA client and an
MTA server.
Commands:
Hello e.g. Electroniclinic.com
Send from e.g. [email protected]
Send to e.g. [email protected]
Data: e.g. “Hope you are fine” etc
Response:
 Services Ready
 User not local; the message will be forwarded
 The command is not executed; mailbox unavailable etc.
Mail Transfer Phases: The process of transmitting a mail message takes
place in three phases: forming links, exchanging mail and terminating the
connections.
Connection Establishment:
The SMTP server begins the connection process once a client has made a
TCP link to the well-known port 25.
Mail Transfer:
Connection Termination:
Upon successful transmission of the packet, the connection is terminated b
y the client. This is a two-stage process.
Message Access Agent Protocols: POP3 and IMAP4:
Version 3 (POP3) of the Post Office Protocol:

It is easy and functionally constrained. On the receiver computer the client
POP3 software is installed; the server POP3 software is installed on the
mail server. Mail access starts when the user has to retrieve his email from
the mailbox on the mail server. On TCP port 110 the client opens a
connection to the server. To enter the mailbox, It then sends the user name
and password. The user will then, one by one, list and retrieve the emails.
Internet Mail Access Protocol, version 4 (IMAP4):
Another standard for accessing mail is the Internet Mail Access Standard,
version 4 (IMAP4). IMAP4 is similar to POP3 but more features are
available; IMAP4 is more powerful and more complex. There are several
forms POP3 is deficient. It does not require the user to arrange their mail
on the server; there are various directories on the server that the user can
not. (Of course the user should build files on his own computer). However,
POP3 does not allow the user to review the mail content partially before
downloading. IMAP4 provides extra functions as follows:
 Before downloading a user can check the email header.

 Before downloading a user can search the email contents for a specific string of characters.
 Partially, a user can access email. This is particularly useful if the bandwidth is small and the
email includes high bandwidth requirements for multimedia.
 A user on mail server can build, remove, or rename mailboxes.
 A user can construct a mailbox hierarchy in an email storage folder.
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME):

Electronic mail is structured simply. Yet its simplicity comes with a price. It
can only send messages in 7-bit NVT ASCII format. It, in otherher words, has
certain drawbacks. Languages other than English (such as French, German,
Hebrew, Russian, Chinese, Urdu and Japanese) cannot be used. It may also
not be used for sending binary files or video or audio data.
MIME is a supplementary protocol allowing the sending of non-ASCII data

via email. At the sender location, MIME converts non-ASCII data into NVT
ASCII data and transfers it to the MTA client to be sent over the Web. The
message is converted back to the original data at the receiving site. MIME
can be seen as a set of software functions that transform non-ASCII data
into ASCII data, and vice versa
Web Mail, Web based Email:

Email is such a common application that some websites today provide this
service to anyone who accesses the site. Three common sites are Hotmail,
Yahoo, and Google. The idea is very simple. Let us go through two cases:
Case I
Alice, the sender, uses a conventional mail server in the first case; Bob, the
recipient, has a Web based server account in it. Mail transfer is done via
SMTP from Alice’s browser to their mail server. The message being
transmitted from the sending mail server to the receiving mail server is still
via SMTP. Nonetheless, the message to Bob’s browser from the receiving
server (the web server) is done via HTTP. In other words, the HTTP is
typically used instead of using POP3 or IMAP4. If Bob wants to get his
emails recovered, he sends an HTTP request message to the website (for
example, Hotmail).The website sends a form for Bob to fill in, which
contains the user name and password. If the log-in name and password
match, the e-mail list is transferred in HTML format from the Web server
to Bob’s browser. Now Bob can browse through his received e-mails and
then can get his e-mails one by one using more HTTP transactions.
Case II:
Both Alice and Bob use Web servers in the second case but not exactly the
same server. Using HTTP transfers Alice sends the message to the Web
server. Alice sends an HTTP request message to its Web server using Bob’s
mailbox name and address as the URL. The Alice server passes the message
to the SMTP client and sends it via SMTP protocol to the server at the Bob
site. Bob receives the message using transactions running HTTP. The
communication from the server at the Alice site to the server at the Bob
site, however, also happens using SMTP protocol.

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Subject: Computer networks.

Semester: 7th A,B and C

Case study on application layer protocol.

E-mail application protocol: Email Architecture, SMTP POP3

 User Agent (UA)

Mailing List or Group List:

Mail Transfer Agent “MTA”:

Message Access Agent “MAA”:

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP):

Message Access Agent Protocols: POP3 and IMAP4:

Version 3 (POP3) of the Post Office Protocol:

 Before downloading a user can check the email header.

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME):

MIME is a supplementary protocol allowing the sending of non-ASCII data

Web Mail, Web based Email:

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