Electronic Mail

Introduction
Electronic mail, commonly known as email, is a method of exchanging messages over the
internet. Here are the basics of email:

1. An email address: This is a unique identifier for each user, typically in the format of
name@domain.com.
2. An email client: This is a software program used to send, receive and manage emails, such as
Gmail, Outlook, or Apple Mail.
3. An email server: This is a computer system responsible for storing and forwarding emails to
their intended recipients.
Components of E-Mail System
1. User Agent (UA) : The UA is normally a program which is used to send and receive mail.
Sometimes, it is called as mail reader. It accepts variety of commands for composing,
receiving and replying to messages as well as for manipulation of the mailboxes.
2. Message Transfer Agent (MTA) : MTA is actually responsible for transfer of mail from one
system to another. To send a mail, a system must have client MTA and system MTA. It
transfer mail to mailboxes of recipients if they are connected in the same machine. It delivers
mail to peer MTA if destination mailbox is in another machine. The delivery from one MTA
to another MTA is done by Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.
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1. Mailbox : It is a file on local hard drive to collect mails. Delivered mails are
present in this file. The user can read it delete it according to his/her requirement.
To use e-mail system each user must have a mailbox . Access to mailbox is only to
owner of mailbox.
2. Spool file : This file contains mails that are to be sent.
MIME
MIME stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions.

he MIME protocol allows the users to exchange various types of digital content such as pictures,
audio, video, and various types of documents and files in the e-mail.

MIME is an e-mail extension protocol, i.e., it does not operate independently, but it helps to extend the
capabilities of e-mail in collaboration with other protocols such as SMTP.
Working of MIME Protocol
MIME Header
MIME adds five additional fields to the header portion of the actual e-mail to extend the properties of
the simple email protocol. These fields are as follows:

1. MIME Version
2. Content Type
3. Content Type Encoding
4. Content Id
5. Content description
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1. MIME Version

It defines the version of the MIME protocol. This header usually has a parameter value 1.0, indicating
that the message is formatted using MIME.

2. Content Type

It describes the type and subtype of information to be sent in the message. These messages can be of
many types such as Text, Image, Audio, Video, and they also have many subtypes such that the
subtype of the image can be png or jpeg. Similarly, the subtype of Video can be WEBM, MP4 etc.

3. Content Type Encoding

In this field, it is told which method has been used to convert mail information into ASCII or Binary
number, such as 7-bit encoding, 8-bit encoding, etc.
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4. Content Id

In this field, a unique "Content Id" number is appended to all email messages so that they can be
uniquely identified.

5. Content description

This field contains a brief description of the content within the email. This means that information
about whatever is being sent in the mail is clearly in the "Content Description". This field also
provides the information of name, creation date, and modification date of the file.
SMTP PROTOCOL
● 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.
● The SMTP server is an always-on listening mode. As soon as 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.
SMTP Model
The SMTP model is of two types:
1. End-to-end method
2. Store-and-forward method
SMTP Model
Components of SMTP
1. 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).
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
Commands of SMTP
Working of SMTP
Mail transfer phase
The process of transferring the mail message occurs in three phases:

● Connection establishment
● Mail Transfer
● Connection Termination
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