Email and List Servers

Email

E-mail is defined as the transmission of messages on the Internet. It is one of the most
commonly used features over communications networks that may contain text, files,
images, or other attachments. Generally, it is information that is stored on a computer
sent through a network to a specified individual or group of individuals.

Email messages are conveyed through email servers; it uses multiple protocols within
the TCP/IP suite. For example, SMTP is a protocol, stands for simple mail transfer
protocol and used to send messages whereas other protocols IMAP or POP are used
to retrieve messages from a mail server. If you want to login to your mail account, you
just need to enter a valid email address, password, and the mail servers used to send
and receive messages.

Email messages include three components, which are as follows:

o Message envelope: It depicts the email's electronic format.

o Message header: It contains email subject line and sender/recipient
information.
o Message body: It comprises images, text, and other file attachments.

Advantages of Email

There are many advantages of email, which are as follows:

o Cost-effective: Email is a very cost-effective service to communicate with

others as there are several email services available to individuals and
organizations for free of cost.
o Email offers users the benefit of accessing email from anywhere at any time if
they have an Internet connection.
o Email offers you an incurable communication process, which enables you to
send a response at a convenient time.
o Speed and simplicity: Email can be composed very easily with the correct
information and contacts. Also, minimum lag time, it can be exchanged quickly.
o Mass sending: You can send a message easily to large numbers of people
through email.
o Email provides a simple user interface and enables users to categorize and filter
their messages.
 o As compared to traditional posts, emails are delivered extremely fast.
o Email reduces the cost of paper and helps to save the environment by reducing
paper usage.

List Servers:

A server that manages electronic mailing lists. It enables users to subscribe and
unsubscribe to the service, and it forwards messages from publishers to subscribers as
required.

There are many list servers available, each having its own commands for subscribing
to the list. Some of them are described in the following table:

List Server Command Example

LISTSERV subscribe listname yourname subscribe commdhtml rahul

Majordomo subscribe listname subscribe commdhtml

ListProc subscribe listname yourname subscribe commdhtml rahul

Email Protocols

Email protocols are a collection of protocols that are used to send and receive emails
properly. The email protocols provide the ability for the client to transmit the mail to
or from the intended mail server. Email protocols are a set of commands for sharing
mails between two computers. Email protocols establish communication between the
sender and receiver for the transmission of email.

x.400 Protocol

X.400 is a suite of protocols defining standards for email messaging systems. It was
defined by the ITU-TS (International Telecommunications Union—
Telecommunications Sector) in 1984 and again in 1988. Used as an alternative to the
more common email protocol called Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).

X.400 is more complex than SMTP. However, it is familiar to many email server
administrators who use Microsoft’s Exchange email server. Exchange also supports
SMTP because Exchange is used globally and must support as many standards as
possible.

An X.400 address consists of several elements:

C: Country name
ADMD: Administration Management Domain
PRMD: Private Management Domain
O: Organization name
OU: Organization Unit name
G: given name
I: Initials
S: surname

An email address in SMTP looks like this: andrew.smith@ourcompany.co.uk. The

equivalent in X.400 would be: G=Andrew, S=smith, O=co, OU= ourcompany and C=uk,
so GS@OU.O.C.
An X.400 setup consists of several components: