What Is the Meaning of SMTP?
SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, which is an Internet standard or common format that email servers use to transfer emails back and forth across networks. This is why you are asked for information about your SMTP server when you first set up an email client application on your computer or smart phone. These servers utilize SMTP to constantly exchange new emails so that your email application can automatically retrieve them.
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History
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When the Internet was first developed in the 1960s for a small number of scientists and eventually utilized by the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) during the 1970s, they made use of person-to-person electronic messaging to communicate. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol developed from the programming used by these researchers in the 1970s to communicate. File Transfer Protocol (FTP) used to download and upload large files gave birth to SMTP, which was outlined by Jonathon Postel in 1982 in a document titled RFC-821.
Significance
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Most email applications and email services provided on the Internet utilize SMTP to transfer mail. That is the case for email applications and services around the globe because of the simple and reliable nature of SMTP. There has simply been no reason to fix what isn't broken.
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Function
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Simple mail transfer protocol standardizes how mail in various formats is exchanged between servers and email applications. First, the sending SMTP server or email application makes a two-way connection with a receiving SMTP server. The servers first make sure they can send and receive information, then they make sure they can send and receive information for specific users. Once the list of recipients is negotiated, all of the necessary mail to be transferred is identified and sent all at once. This is all necessary to avoid the delays inherent in transferring mail for multiple users between different servers.
Types
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The most ubiquitous mail protocol is SMTP, but extended SMTP allows for a number of extensions to be added to the original format. These extensions are simply new commands that SMTP servers will recognize. Among them are "DSN" for deliver status notification, "HELP" for supply helpful information and "SIZE" for message size declaration. Most SMTP servers are capable of handling extended SMTP or ESMTP.
The Future of SMTP
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SMTP has played an essential role in the expansion of the Internet and nearly everyone uses it, but nothing lasts forever. Although an alternative to SMTP is inevitable, there doesn't seem to be any up-and-coming candidates to completely replace it yet. Instead it seems that incremental changes and extensions to SMTP will continue to occur in an attempt to avoid any radical changes that may effect the reliability and efficiency that SMTP provides today.
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References
Resources
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