Welcome to

Unit V: Application Layer

E-Mail Architecture and services
Online Lecture
 Electronic Mail (E-Mail)
• One of the most popular ‘Internet Services’ is
“Electronic Mail” (E-Mail).
• At the beginning of internet era, the messages sent
by e-mail were short and consisted of text only.
• Today, e-mail allows a message to include text,
audio and video. It also allows one message to be
sent to one or more recipients.
• The general architecture of an e-mail system
including the three main components: “USER
AGENT (UA)”, “MESSAGE TRANSFER AGENT (MTA)”
and “MESSAGE ACCESS AGENT (MAA)”.
 E-Mail Scenarios
Scenario – 1:
• In the first scenario, the sender and the receiver of
an e-mail users are on the same system.
• They are directly connected to a shared system.
• So it requires two “User Agents”.
 E-Mail Scenarios
Scenario – 2:
• In the second scenario, the sender and the receiver
of the e-mail users are on the different systems.
• The messages needs to be sent over the ‘Internet’.
• So it requires two “User Agents” and pair of
“Message Transfer Agents ”.
 E-Mail Scenarios
Scenario – 3:
• In the third scenario, the sender is connected to the ‘mail
server’ via ‘LAN’ or ‘WAN’.
• So it requires two “User Agents and pair of Message Transfer
Agents ”.
 E-Mail Scenarios
Scenario – 4:
• In the fourth scenario, both sender and receiver are
connected to the ‘mail server’ via LAN or WAN.
• So to retrieve the messages from server we need “Message
Access Agents”.
• So it requires two “UAs, pair of “MTAs” and a pair of “MAAs”.
 E-Mail Scenarios
Push and Pull operation in E-Mail:
 What E-Mail Contains?
Each e-mail contains the following fields:
• A Number Field.
• A ‘flag’ field the shows the status of mail such as
new, already read but not replied etc.
• The size of the message.
• The sender details.
• The optional subject field.
 E-Mail Architecture
1. User Agent:
• It is the first component in ‘E-Mail System
Architecture’.
• It provides services to the ‘User’ for sending and
receiving a message easier.
 E-Mail Architecture
1. User Agent Services:
• Composing Messages: A ‘User Agent’ helps the user to
compose the e-mail message to be sent out.
• Reading Messages: The ‘User Agent’ is to read the
incoming messages by checking the ‘Inbox’.
• Replying to messages: After reading a message, a user
can use the ‘user agent’ to reply to message to original
sender’ or ‘reply to all recipients’.
• Forwarding Messages: Forwarding is defined as sending
the message to ‘third party’.
• Handling Mailboxes: A ‘User Agent’ creates two mail
boxes: “Inbox” and “Outbox”. The ‘inbox’ keeps all
received messages until they are deleted by the user and
the ‘outbox’ keeps all sent-mails until user deletes them.
E-Mail Architecture:
Format of E-Mail
 E-Mail Architecture:
Address

• To deliver a mail, the mail handling system must use

an addressing system with unique address.
• In the internet, the address consists of two parts:
“Local Part” and “Domain Part”, both are separated
by ‘@’ symbol. Example: support@tcs.in.

Local Part @ Domain Part

 E-Mail Architecture
2. Message Transfer Agent (MTA): SMTP
• The actual mail transfer is done through ‘MTAs’.
• To send a mail, both sender and receiver must have
‘Client MTA’ and ‘Receiver MTA’.
• So the protocol which defines the “MTA client and
server” is called as “Simple Mail Transfer Protocol”
(SMTP).
• It follows fourth scenario.
 E-Mail Architecture
2. Message Transfer Agent (MTA): SMTP
• The SMTP is used at only two-stages between the
“sender and sender’s mail server” and “between the
two mail servers”.
 E-Mail Architecture
2. Message Transfer Agent (MTA): SMTP
• The SMTP uses “Commands” and “Responses” to
transfer messages between the “MTA Client and
Server”.
• The Commands are sent from the client to server. It
consists of ‘keywords’ such as: ‘HELO’, ‘MAIL FROM’,
‘RCPT TO’, ‘DATA’, ‘HELP’ etc.
 E-Mail Architecture
3. Message Access Agent (MAA): POP and IMAP
• The SMTP is a ‘push’ protocol, it pushes the message
from client to server and it involved in first and
second stages.
• Now the third stage needs ‘pull’ protocol, it pulls the
message from server to client.
• This supported by two protocols:
1. Post Office Protocol, Version 3 (POP3)
2. Internet Mail Access Protocol, Version 4 (IMAP4)
These two protocols used in fourth scenario.
 E-Mail Architecture
3. Message Access Agent (MAA): POP and IMAP
 E-Mail Architecture
3. Message Access Agent (MAA): POP
• For mail accessing, the client opens a connection to
the server by using TCP.
• It then send its username and password for accessing
the mail.
• POP3 has two modes: “Delete” mode and “Keep”
mode.
• In the ‘delete’ mode, the mail is deleted from the
mailbox after each retrieval.
• In the ‘Keep’ mode, the mail remains in the mailbox
after retrieval.
 E-Mail Architecture
3. Message Access Agent (MAA): POP
 E-Mail Architecture
3. Message Access Agent (MAA): IMAP4
• It is similar to POP3 protocol with some more
features.
• It provides the following functions:
1. A user can search the content.
2. Partial download can possible if the bandwidth is limited.
3. A user can create, delete and rename mailboxes.
4. User can create hierarchy of mailboxes in folder wise.