Smtp & pop3

dynamik

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1939.txt
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc0821.txt

CHECKMATE!

/usr

So your saying that Outlook's "Send/Receive" button is an active "pop3" protocol button?

Exactly. When hitting the button you will initiate the connection to your mail server and will, as the button says, "Send and Receive your mail".

Here's my understanding.. Obviously we have established pop3 "pulls" but now the question is.. where's it going next?

And what i understand, is that
A: Its going to your harddrive
or
B: it's going to a remote server/domain
depending on your configuration

That sound right?

The POP3 protocol will "pull" your mail to whatever location you choose, depending on your configuration, yes. So yes, after the mail is pulled from the server, it is going to whatever storage location (Be that a server, a .pst file, etc.) that you have open in Microsoft Outlook, and is then presented to you as new mail, in your Inbox, in Outlook.

lildeezul

gojericho0 wrote: »

huh? i was just trying to clarify the storage question

No, sorry for the confusion, i was telling derek to refer to your post, becuase that post had answered his question.. sorry for the confusion

DerekAustin26

/usr wrote: »

OP, you need to clarify. A lot of people are trying to help you and you're replying with smart ass comments.

First of all. Why is this in the CCNA forum?

Second, could you please clarify what the hell you're asking?


SMTP is for sending mail, correct.
POP3 is for receiving mail, correct.

Yes.


When you are "online" in Microsoft Outlook, what do you mean?

If you are using a POP3/SMTP mail server in your Accounts, then you are never "online" with Microsoft Outlook. You connect when you hit "Send and Receive", or at a time interval if you have that selected. When you connect, you connect to your mail server. You use the POP3 protocol to download the mail from your mail server. You use the SMTP protocol when you're sending mail to your mail server.


To download the mail, sent by other people and queued on your mail server, to your mail client.


If I am missing something or am wrong in any aspect of this, please correct me. Otherwise, do you understand?

Okay, in Outlook you can be either offline or online.
And in regards to what everyone else is saying.. You are using SMTP & POP3

About what i was sayin about being online - You cant be "working offline" and receive messages" UNLESS you hit "Send/Receive" or Sign online to whatever server you configured Outlook to when you first setup Outlook in your exchange server settings screen.

To everyone: POP3 pulls the mail from the SMTP Server to your hard drive ONLY if you make a rule for it to go to your PST folder.
The way my outlook is setup here at work, we have a domain called "AMER" so if i was to completely reformat this computer , i could reinstall Outlook and sign into "AMER" because I am on a Roaming profile at that point until i setup my station as an ADMIN.

Now with that said, all my mail that i have will not be deleted, hence it is not being saved on my hard drive, cuz if it was, it'd be gone after i reimaged my machine.

But when I setup my Outlook, my outlook is configured for the Exchange Server which has my domain "AMER". Now does this make sense?

For those of you who think POP3 pulls mail to your Harddrive by default.. this is 100% incorrect.

My questions have been fulfilled and I thank the rest of you who have helped me out.

kalebksp

DerekAustin26 wrote: »

exchange server

Exchange doesn't use POP3, it uses MAPI.

DerekAustin26 wrote: »

For those of you who think POP3 pulls mail to your Harddrive by default.. this is 100% incorrect.

No, we're not.

meadIT

It sounds like you're on a local exchange server using IMAP. Either that, or, if you are actually using POP3, your client is configured to leave the messages on the server. If this is the case, then they are getting downloaded to your harddrive, and you're just re-downloading the messages when you reformat.

In Outlook, go to Tools -> Email Accounts, then select View or change..., click Next

This will tell you what type of account you are using to get your mail, either Exchange, POP3, or IMAP. I'm betting it's exchange on your domain, which in case, you are NOT using POP3.

DerekAustin26

Okay, now that makes alot more sense.. Im not too familiar with IMAP , except that i know it's more secure. So if i was to setup my Outlook for a POP3 server, it'd be the same thing except it'd be using POP3 instead of IMAP right?

If not,Could you elaborate on the differences I would notice between what i have right now and the POP3 configuration?

kriscamaro68

Pop3 does pull e-mail to your local harddrive exchange just keeps the e-mail on the server for the user to have web access to and for archiving but it doenst use pop3 but I could be wrong. If you where to unplug the network cable on your computer right now with outlook open your not going to loose your e-mails using pop3 because it downloads them locally so that they can be viewed at any point in time once downloaded weather or not you have a connection.

DerekAustin26

rwwest7 said that.

meadIT

POP3 will actually download the mail from your server. It is then stored on your harddrive and deleted (depending on your client settings) from the server.

With IMAP, you are actually keeping a connection alive to the server, so when you delete things, you are deleting them from the server.

Think of POP3 as downloading files from a website and using them locally. Now think of IMAP as an FTP client that makes a connection to a webserver. Any changes you make during this connection is done directly on the server, not locally.

Now I think you owe everyone that was trying to help you an apology.

DerekAustin26

Okay, now let me clarify something here...

If you are using an Exchange Server you use IMAP which pulls the mail from the SMTP Server.

If your not using the exchange server then you use POP3 which pulls the mail from the SMTP Server to your harddrive?

Can someone confidently agree to this?

It seems like one protocol pulls to the HD and the other pulls to a server.....

tiersten

DerekAustin26 wrote: »

Okay, now that makes alot more sense.. Im not too familiar with IMAP , except that i know it's more secure

They're roughly equivalent in security. Both are unencrypted by default and will send a cleartext password.

DerekAustin26 wrote: »

If not,Could you elaborate on the differences I would notice between what i have right now and the POP3 configuration?

We already have told you the difference.

POP3 is a single mailbox on the server which represents your incoming email. The usual configuration is that once you've downloaded an email to your local machine, your mail client will delete it from the server.

IMAP supports multiple mailboxes on the server. You're supposed to keep everything on the server itself.

If you access your email from multiple machines then you'd want to use IMAP. The disadvantage of IMAP is that offline access is difficult because everything is kept on the server. Another disadvantage is that the server has greater storage requirements from having to store all your email forever.

DerekAustin26 wrote: »

For those of you who think POP3 pulls mail to your Harddrive by default.. this is 100% incorrect.

People are trying to answer your questions. You shouldn't be so stubborn and aggressive in your replies.

DerekAustin26

And I sincerely apologize for the misunderstanding...

It's hard to ask the right question when your not fully educated enough on protocols & servers to acknowledge the fact that I was actually using IMAP all along.

I have done my homework and looked up IMAP & POP3. the books tell you that IMAP is basically POP3 except it uses authentication..

If it would just explain it to you in lamens terms in a real life scenario like ""user A uses Exchange Server and IMAP pulls the messages off the SMTP Server to his exchange server, this is called IMAP"

"If user B downloads SMTP Messages from the SMTP Server to your HD and not to a server, this is called POP3"

Its very vague.. and again its just frustrating when you guys are explaining it correctly but it's not making sense with the actual configuration i am setup on since i was using IMAP all this time and was unaware of it.

Thanks again.. Sorry

tiersten

DerekAustin26 wrote: »

If you are using an Exchange Server you use IMAP which pulls the mail from the SMTP Server.

No. Exchange has already internally delivered the received email to your inbox. From the black box point of view, Exchange is a combined MAPI/IMAP/POP3/SMTP server. It does its own thing internally.

MAPI is how Outlook natively talks to an Exchange server to send/receive emails.

IMAP is how a generic mail client talks to an IMAP server to receive emails. Exchange can be an IMAP server. You're supposed to keep everything on the server.

POP3 is how a generic mail client talks to an POP3 server to receive emails. Exchange can be a POP3 server. You're supposed to keep everything locally.

SMTP is how a mail client or server can send an email to another SMTP server. Exchange can be a SMTP server.

kalebksp

This looks to be a pretty good explanation of email: Howstuffworks "How E-mail Works"

It has some diagrams too, which may help you understand how it all ties together.

One thing to keep in mind is that Exchange has it's own proprietary protocol (MAPI), which can be used in place of POP3 or IMAP. Exchange can also be configured to allow POP3 and/or IMAP. If you go through the account setup wizard in Outlook and select Microsoft Exchange as the account type you're going to be configuring it to use that proprietary protocol.

Hope this helps.

tiersten

DerekAustin26 wrote: »

the books tell you that IMAP is basically POP3 except it uses authentication..

The most basic POP3 connection does do authentication. The connection isn't encrypted and the password is just sent in the clear however. If somebody is sniffing network traffic then they'll know your username and password to your POP3 email account.

A SMTP server listens for incoming SMTP connections to receive email. Once it receives an email, it decides whether it the destination is a local one or whether it should be routed to another SMTP server. If it is a local one then it will deliver the email to a mailbox for the recipient to collect later. If it a remote one then it will work out the correct SMTP server to deliver it to and use SMTP to do so.

POP3/IMAP are used to access that mailbox that the SMTP server has delivered your email to.

/usr

Please read tiersten's post carefully, as I see that you keep referring to "pulling the mail from the SMTP server", which is technically not correct.

Your SMTP server handles outgoing mail and delivers it to the proper location (most likely a user's mailbox). You do not connect to it to receive mail.

DerekAustin26

tiersten wrote: »

The most basic POP3 connection does do authentication. The connection isn't encrypted and the password is just sent in the clear however. If somebody is sniffing network traffic then they'll know your username and password to your POP3 email account.

A SMTP server listens for incoming SMTP connections to receive email. Once it receives an email, it decides whether it the destination is a local one or whether it should be routed to another SMTP server. If it is a local one then it will deliver the email to a mailbox for the recipient to collect later. If it a remote one then it will work out the correct SMTP server to deliver it to and use SMTP to do so.

POP3/IMAP are used to access that mailbox that the SMTP server has delivered your email to.

Okay, so when the SMTP Server sends the mail to the mailbox. Is this where it sends it to your Exchange Server? (according to my configuration)

DerekAustin26

/usr wrote: »

Please read tiersten's post carefully, as I see that you keep referring to "pulling the mail from the SMTP server", which is technically not correct..

I guess that was my confusion.. If I used POP3, then technically it will pull the mail from the POP3 Server, not the SMTP Server.. right?

tiersten

DerekAustin26 wrote: »

I guess that was my confusion.. If I used POP3, then technically it will pull the mail from the POP3 Server, not the SMTP Server.. right?

Yup. You've got it.

/usr

I think you are getting your terms confused.

Your mail will always be stored on your Email Server, in YOUR mailbox on that server. This is one function of an email server, to store mail, either permanently or temporarily, depending on your configuration.

POP3 and SMTP are protocols used to achieve the function of sending and receiving mail. The "SMTP/POP3 servers" are simply roles running on your mail server designed to perform a specific function, using the corresponding protocol to perform that function.

DerekAustin26

/usr wrote: »

I think you are getting your terms confused.

Your mail will always be stored on your Email Server, in YOUR mailbox on that server. This is one function of an email server, to store mail, either permanently or temporarily, depending on your configuration.

POP3 and SMTP are protocols used to achieve the function of sending and receiving mail. The "SMTP/POP3 servers" are simply roles running on your mail server designed to perform a specific function, using the corresponding protocol to perform that function.

Okay i think i got it..
So the email server I have stores all the data.. I juse use my POP3 protocol for stuff like downloading attachments, pictures, or exe type files..

It basically works like this.. I send email using SMTP. I receive Email on my local server(Whatever is configured in Outlook) I use my POP3 protocol to pull it from that POP3 server to my HD and if I'm using Exchange Server I use IMAP to pull the data to my HD. Sound good?

/usr

Yes, kind of.

You use the POP3 protocol to connect to your mail server and download email people have sent you.

A scenario might help...

John Doe sends you an email to "derekaustin@domain.com". When that mail makes it to your mail server, your mail server will look for a user called "derekaustin" and place the email in your mailbox, on the server. You would be connecting to your mail server, using a protocol (POP3, IMAP, etc.) to retrieve the mail from your mailbox.

What happens beyond that depends entirely on your individual configuration.

I would leave it at that, because you're opening up another door when you start talking about Exchange server. With Exchange, your mail stays on the server and is thus accessible wherever you go. However, Outlook clients can operate in "Cached mode", which will download your mail from Exchange and place it into a file on your hard drive, thus making it accessible when you are not connected to Exchange.

DerekAustin26

/usr wrote: »

Yes, kind of.

You use the POP3 protocol to connect to your mail server and download email people have sent you.

A scenario might help...

John Doe sends you an email to "derekaustin@domain.com". When that mail makes it to your mail server, your mail server will look for a user called "derekaustin" and place the email in your mailbox, on the server. You would be connecting to your mail server, using a protocol (POP3, IMAP, etc.) to retrieve the mail from your mailbox.
.

So every time I logon to my Outlook I'm basically staring at my "Exchange Server's mail" for DerekAustin ? Because I prefer NOT to download anything to my HD and waste space unless I want to archive using my PST files.

Now if I decide to download this mail to my HD is when my POP3/IMAP (depending on what server im using) comes into play. I believe this is what your saying....

dynamik

DerekAustin26 wrote: »

So every time I logon to my Outlook I'm basically staring at my "Exchange Server's mail" for DerekAustin ?

Yea.

DerekAustin26 wrote: »

Because I prefer NOT to download anything to my HD and waste space unless I want to archive using my PST files.

Exchange is going to store your messages centrally, so everyone's data can be backed up from a central location and you can access your emails through Activesync, OWA, Outlook Anywhere, etc. I don't think saving space on the client machines is a big priority. Also, if you can figure Outlook to cache your data, it will create an OST file and store the data locally as well.

DerekAustin26 wrote: »

Now if I decide to download this mail to my HD is when my POP3/IMAP (depending on what server im using) comes into play. I believe this is what your saying....

As mentioned before, you'd probably be using MAPI if you're working with Exchange. You can set it up to use POP/IMAP as well though.

/usr

In order to use POP3/SMTP, you would have to specify that type of account when setting up the account within Outlook. Otherwise, you are NOT using POP3 to retrieve your mail, ever.

And it depends on how your Exchange server is configured. For example, with our Exchange 2007 server, we operate in Cached Mode. When a user connects to Exchange, they will update their mail, contacts, etc. Exchange will then disconnect from the mail server, so you would actually be looking at a file on your hard drive that Exchange keeps synced with the server.

The benefit of this is that your mail still stays on the server, but you don't consume bandwidth by keeping a constant open connection to Exchange server.