Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

Synonyms

SMTP

(SMTP) A protocol defined in STD 10, RFC 821, used to transfer electronic mail between computers, usually over Ethernet. It is a server to server protocol, so other protocols are used to access the messages. The SMTP dialog usually happens in the background under the control of the message transfer agent, e.g. sendmail but it is possible to interact with an SMTP server using telnet to connect to the normal SMTP port, 25. E.g.

	telnet mhs-relay.ac.uk 25

You should normally start by identifying the local host:

	HELO wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk

You can then issue commands to verify an address or expand an alias:

	VRFY fred@doc.ic.ac.uk
	VRFY postmaster

or expand a mailing list:

	EXPN c-help

You can even send a message:

	MAIL From:
	RCPT To:
	DATA
	What is the point?
	.
	QUIT

This is useful if you want to find out exactly what is happening to your message at a certain point.