How Does SMTP Email Work? Let’s Learn The Fundamentals!

In simplest words, SMTP is a standard communication protocol for sending an e-mail. POP (Post Office Protocol) or IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is used to read the mail at the receiver’s end. Hence, a combination of SMTP and POP or IMAP is used to send and receive the mails.

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Working Of SMTP Email

All the client email hosting programs support the SMTP Email method, and some basic SMTP settings are maintained to enable the email transfer process. The basic settings consist of the IP address of the related SMTP server together with the address of a POP or IMAP server. The client email program inlays the address of the SMTP server within its configuration. On the other hand, the work of the PC client here is to provide the settings for SMTP Email, which enables the user to choose the server which they want. Now, this is how the whole process works:

 

  • To send an email, the client has to initiate a TCP connection to the hosted SMTP server, and then an email is sent using that connection.
  • The SMTP server is always on the attending mode, and it attends the TCP connection immediately as soon as it listens to it.
  • After listening to the TCP connection, the SMTP sevice initializes the process on TCP port number 25.
  • Some standard groups have designed some other TCP ports, to make some improvements in the SMTP relay service and to counter the problem of spam. The SMTP Host Gmail uses the TCP port 465.
  • When a secure TCP connection is established, the email is sent immediately by the client-server.

Requirements For SMTP Email Configuration

Here are the basic things which are required for the SMTP Configuration:

 

  • Address of the Host: If the user wants to send an email using his/ her email address, then the address of the hosted SMTP server is required to authenticate the user for sending the email.
  • Port Number: It is one of the most important requirements as the port number is used to determine a specific address to which the email needs to be transferred from the server.
  • Encryption: It is a security measure as email encryption relates to encrypting the content inside the email, which prevents any unwanted entity from reading the message and preventing a MITM (Man-In-The-Middle) attack. It is a way to ensure that only the intended recipients can get access to the email supporting the confidentiality of information being transferred.
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Some Common Problems Associated With SMTP Email

Almost all the mail transfer services use SMTP to send emails. But, SMTP is only an email sending protocol. Other protocols like POP and IMAP are also to be used along with SMTP to retrieve the messages. Hence, SMTP is not capable enough to complete the whole end-to-end process of email transfer by itself.

Another issue with SMTP Email is that it lacks some important features when it comes to information security. Spammers take advantage of these vulnerabilities to exploit the parties involved in communication. In the past also, SNMP was exploited by way of generating several of junk emails, and then these emails were delivered using the free SMTP hosting servers. With time, there has been an improvement in the protection level against spammers. But, now also, the security measures cannot provide 100% security. Additionally, one of the loopholes in SMTP is that fake ‘From:’ email address that can easily be replaced by the spammers.

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