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What Is SMTP Protocol?

What Is SMTP Protocol?

What is SMTP? Image designed by Thavarajah Ridhushana
SMTP 

Email is a method of communication. Nowadays, people around the world use email services.

Exchange information with electronic devices is possible with email. The exchange of information can be between two people or a group of people.

Let us know about a protocol related to transferring email.


SMTP

  • SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. It is a protocol used to send email through the internet.
  • Uses TCP (Transmission Control Protocol).
  • It is an application-level protocol.
  • It uses commands to mail authentication and transfer email.

Examples of commands:

HELO – It is the first command in SMTP. To identify the sender’s (server) domain name
DATA – To send data of mail body by individual lines to the SMTP.
RCPT – To identify the receiver of the email. Repeat the command with address for more than one receiver.
MAIL – To start the transferring of the email.
QUIT – To stop the conversation of SMTP


How does SMTP work?

The user fills in the content of the email and clicks the send button. 

The SMTP server (sender’s email server) of the sender receives the email with SMTP protocol.

Then it will be available on the receiver’s email server until the person logs into his email account. When the recipient logged into the server, the person has to download(retrieve) the email. 

Retrieve email using POP3 (Post Office Protocol) or IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol).

Webmail is available to view the email on the server apart from downloading.

SMTP Model

There are two types of SMTP model as mentioned below,
1. End-to-end - Communication among various organizations.
2. Store-and-forward - Communication within the organization

Advantages

  • It is flexible.
  • It has no restrictions.
  • On failure during the delivery of the email, an explanation is sent back.
  • Coding is not required.

Disadvantages

  • It is not secure to send email through SMTP.
  • Hackers have a higher possibility to hack email.
  • The ports used by the SMTP may reject by some firewalls.
  • After a specific time, all the emails will get rejected by the SMTP server (due to length specificity).
  • Limited to seven(7) bits of ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) characters.

Conclusion

There can be benefits and disadvantages of using SMTP protocol over email transmission. It is important to know that, depending on the need, the protocols may change.


Thanks for reading my blog by spending your time. I hope this blog helped you to know about the usage of the SMTP protocol.


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References

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJo5yOtu7o8https://www.ecstuff4u.com/2020/05/advantage-disadvantages-smtp.html
  2. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/simple-mail-transfer-protocol-smtp/

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