Chapter 26

SMTP
and
FTP
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  Email is used for sending a single message that
includes text, voice, video, or graphics to one or more
recipients.
 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).
 Sending Mail
 User creates mail that looks very similar to postal mail.

Envelope: sender and receiver address
 Message:

Header: Define the sender, receiver, subject of the message, ...

Body:contains the actual information to be read by the recipient.
 Receiving mail
 Email system periodically checks the mailboxes.

If a user has mail, it informs the user with a notice
 If the user is ready to read the mail, a list is displayed in which
each line contains a summary of the information about a
particular message in the mailbox. Summary contains the
sender mail address, the subject, and time the mail was sent
or received.
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 Figure 26.1 Format of an email

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 Figure 26.2 Email address

 Mail handling system must use an addressing

system with unique addresses.
 Local part: Name of a special file, called the user
mailbox, where all the mail received for a user is
stored for retrieval by the user agent.
 Domain Name:
 Organization usually selects one or more hosts to
receive and send email; they are sometimes called
mail exchangers.
 Domain name assigned to each mail exchanger either
comes from the DNS database or is a logical name
(e.g., the name of the organization).

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 Figure 26.3 User agent

 First component of an electronic mail system is

the user agent (UA); Mail Reader.
 Service provided by a user agent
 User agent is a software package (program) that
composes, reads, replies to, and forward messages.
 It also handles mailboxes.
 Composing messages:

Responsible for composing the email msg to be sent
out.

Some of them provide a template and some provide
with built-in editor; OR else user can type in an editor
and paste into the user agent.

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  Reading messages
 User agent is used to read incoming messages.
 When a user invokes a user agent, it first checks the mail in the
incoming mailbox. A one-line summary [number, flag field
indicating if the mail is new OR already read but not replied to
OR read and replied to OR …, size of message, sender, subject
if subject line in msg is not empty] of each received mail is
shown.
 Replying to messages
 After the reading a message, user can use the user agent to
reply to a message.
 User agent allows the user to reply to the original sender or to
reply to all recipients of the message.
 Reply contains the original message (for quick reference) and
new message.
 Forwarding messages: Can forward with or without extra
comments.
 Handling Mailboxes:
 Inbox: Keeps all received emails until they are deleted by the
user.
 Outbox: Keeps all sent emails until the user deletes them.

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 User Agent Types
 Command-Driven
 Normally accepts a one-character command from the
keyboard to perform its task.
 mail, pine, elm, …
 GUI-Based
 Contain GUI components that allow the user to
interact with the software by using both the
keyboard and the mouse.
 Eudora, Microsoft’s Outlook, Netscape,…
 SMTP is a simple mail transfer protocol

Can send messages only in 7-bit ASCII format.

Cannot be used to send binary files or video or audio.

Cannot support few languages that are not supported
by ASCII

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 Figure 26.4 MIME

 Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME)

 Supplementary protocol that allows non-ASCII data to
be sent through SMTP.
 Only an extension to SMTP.
 MIME transforms non-ASCII data at the sender side to
ASCII data and delivers them to client SMTP to sent
through the Internet. Reverse is done at the receiver
side.

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 Figure 26.5 MIME header

 MIME defines five headers that can be added to original

SMTP header:
 MIME-Version
 Content-Type: Type of data used in the body; has subtypes
separated with slashes.
 Content-Transfer-Encoding
 Content-Id: Uniquely identifies the whole message in a
multiple-message environment.
 Content-Description: Whether the body is image, audio, or
video.

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 Content Types
 Text
 7-bit ASCII; no transformation by MIME
 Multipart
 Multiple, independent parts.
 Needs to define the boundary between each part, as
a parameter.
 Boundary is terminated using two hyphens.

Mixed: Present the parts in exact order as they are in
message.

Parallel: Order of parts is unimportant.

Digest: Same as mixed but default type/subtype is
message/RFC822

Alternative: Same message is repeated using different
formats.

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  Message:
 Body is itself a whole mail message, a part of a
mail message, or a pointer to a message.
 Subtypes:

RFC822: Used if the body is encapsulating another
message (including header and the body).

Partial: Used if the original message has been fragmented
into different mail messages and this message is one of
the fragments.
 Fragments must be reassembled at the destination by
MIME.
 Three parameters must be added: id, number, total
 Id: identifies the message and is present in all the
fragments.
 Number: sequence order of the fragment
 Total: number of fragments that comprise the original
message

External-body.
 Body does not contain the actual message but is only

a reference (pointer) to the original message.

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  Image
 Original message is a stationary image, indicating that there
is no animation.

Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG)

Graphics Interchange Format (GIF)
 Video
 Original message is a time-varying image (animation).
 Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG)
 If the animated image contains sounds, it must be sent
separately using the audio content type.
 Audio
 Original message is a sound.
 Only subtype is basic, which uses 8-KHz standard audio data.
 Application
 Original message is a type of data not previously defined.

Octet-stream is used when the data must be interpreted as a
sequence of 8-bit bytes (binary file).

PostScript is used when the data are in Adobe PostScript format.

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 Table 26.1 Data types and subtypes in MIME
Type Subtype Description
Text Plain Unformatted text; 7-bit ASCII
Mixed Body contains ordered parts of different data types
Parallel Same as above, but no order
Multipart
Digest Similar to mixed, but the default is message/RFC822
Alternative Parts are different versions of the same message
RFC822 Body is an encapsulated message
Message Partial Body is a fragment of a bigger message
Ext. Body Body is a reference to another message
JPEG Image is in JPEG
Image
GIF Video is in GIF format
Video MPEG Video is in MPEG format
Audio Basic Single-channel encoding of voice at 8 KHz
PostScript Adobe PostScript
Application
Octet-Stream General binary data (8-bit bytes)

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 Content-Transfer-Encoding
 Method to encode the messages into 0s and 1s for transport.
 7bit:

7-bit ASCII encoding

Length of line should not exceed 1000 characters
 8bit: [NOT Recommended]

8-bit encoding; can send non-ASCII characters.

Length of line should not exceed 1000 characters

MIME does not do any encoding here

SMTP must be able to transfer 8-bit non-ASCII characters.
 Binary: [NOT Recommended]

8-bit encoding

Non-ASCII characters can be sent, and the length of the line can exceed
1000 characters.

MIME does not do any encoding here: SMTP must be able to transfer
binary data.
 Base64:

Solution for sending data made of bytes when the highest bit is not
necessarily zero.

Base64 transforms this type of data to printable characters, which can
then be sent as ASCII characters or any type of character set supported
by underlying mail transfer mechanism.
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 Table 26.2 Content-transfer encoding

Category Description

Type ASCII characters and short lines

7bit Non-ASCII characters and short lines

8bit Non-ASCII characters with unlimited-length lines

Binary 6-bit blocks of data are encoded into 8-bit ASCII characters

Non-ASCII characters are encoded as an equal sign followed by an ASCII

Base64
code

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 Figure 26. 6 Base64

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 Table 26.3 Base64 encoding table

Value Code Value Code Value Code Value Code Value Code Value Code

0 A 11 L 22 W 33 h 44 s 55 3
1 B 12 M 23 X 34 i 45 t 56 4
2 C 13 N 24 Y 35 j 46 u 57 5
3 D 14 O 25 Z 36 k 47 v 58 6
4 E 15 P 26 a 37 l 48 w 59 7
5 F 16 Q 27 b 38 m 49 x 60 8
6 G 17 R 28 c 39 n 50 y 61 9
7 H 18 S 29 d 40 o 51 z 62 +
8 I 19 T 30 e 41 p 52 0 63 /
9 J 20 U 31 f 42 q 53 1
10 K 21 V 32 g 43 r 54 2

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 Figure 26.7 Quoted-printable

 Quoted-Printable
 Base64 is a redundant encoding scheme; that is, 24
bits becomes four characters and eventually is sent
as 32 bits.
 If the data consist mostly of ASCII characters with a
small non-ASCII portion, we can use quoted-printable
encoding.
 If a character is:

ASCII, it is sent as it is.

Non-ASCII, sent as three characters. First character is
the equals sign (=). Next two characters are the hex of
the byte.

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 Figure 26.8 MTA client and server

 A mail transfer agent or MTA (also called a

mail server, or a mail exchange server is a
computer program or software agent which
transfers electronic mail messages from one
computer to another. The MTA works behind the
scenes, while the user usually interacts with
another program, the mail user agent (MUA),
which contacts an MTA for actual delivery of the
mail.

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 Typical MTAs:
 Sendmail
Postfix
Exim
QMail

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 Figure 26.9 Commands and responses

 SMTP uses commands and responses to transfer

messages between an MTA client and an MTA server.
 Each command or reply is terminated by a two-character
(carriage return and line feed) end-of-line token.
 Commands

Commands are sent from the client to the server.

Consists of a keyword followed by zero and more arguments.

SMTP defines 14 commands.
 Responses

Responses are sent from server to client.

Response is a three-digit code that may be followed by
additional textual information.

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 Mail Transfer Phases
 Process of transferring a mail message occurs
in three phases
 Connection establishment

After a client has made a TCP connection to the well-
known port 25, the SMTP server starts the connection
phase.
 Message transfer

After connection establishment, a single message
between a sender and one or more recipients can be
exchanged.
 Connection termination

After the message is transferred successfully, the client
terminates the connection.

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 Mail Delivery
 Delivery of email from sender to receiver consists
of three stages
 1st stage

Email goes from user agent to local server

Mail does not go directly to remote server because the
remote server may not be available at all times.

Mail is stored in the local server until it can be sent.
 2nd stage

Email is relayed by local server, which now acts as the
SMTP client, to the remote server, which is the SMTP
server.

Email is delivered to remote server and not to the remote
user agent; Email is stored in mailbox of the user for later
retrieval..

Email server runs the SMTP server program.
 3rd stage

Remote user agent uses a mail access protocol such as
POP3 or IMAP4 to access the mailbox and obtain the mail.

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 Figure 26.10 Email delivery

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 Mail access protocols
 SMTP is a push protocol; it pushes the message
from the sender to the receiver even if the
receiver does not want it.
 3rd stage needs a pull protocol; the operation
must start with the recipient.
 Mail must stay in the mail server mailbox until
the recipient retrieves it.
 POP3 [Post Office Protocol]
 Client POP3 software is installed on the recipient
computer.
 Server POP3 software is installed on the mail server.

Client (user agent) opens a connection with the server on
TCP port 110.

It then sends its user name and password to access the
mailbox.

User can then list and receive mail messages, one by one.

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  POP3 modes
 Delete mode: Mail is deleted from the mailbox after each
retrieval.
 Keep mode: Mail remains in the mailbox after retrieval.
 IMAP4 (Internet Mail Access Protocol)

POP3 assumes that each time a client accesses the server, the
whole mailbox will be cleared out (transferred).

POP3 does not allow user to organize mail on the server; user
cannot have different folders on the server; POP3 does not allow
the user to partially check the contents of the mail before
downloading.
 User can check the email header prior to downloading
 User can search the contents of email for a specific string of
characters prior to downloading
 User can partially download email.
 User can create, delete, or rename mailboxes on mail server
 User can create a hierarchy of mailboxes in a folder for email
storage.
 Web-Based Email: Hotmail or Yahoo
 Mail transfer from client browser to mail server is via HTTP
 SMTP is used for mail transfer from sending mail server to
receiving mail server.
 Message from receiving mail server to browser is via HTTP
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 Figure 26.11 POP3

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 File Transfer Protocol
 Copying a file from one host to another
 Problems in FTP
 Two systems may use different file name
conventions
 Two systems may have different ways to represent
text and data.
 Two systems may have different directory structures.
 FTP establishes two connections between
client and server.
 One connection is used for data transfer [Port 20]
 Other connection for control information (commands
and responses) [Port 21]
 Separation of commands and data transfer makes
FTP more efficient. Commands are very simple.

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 Figure 26.12 FTP

 Client has three components


User interface, Client control process, client data transfer process.
 Server has two components

Server control process, server data transfer process
 Control connection is made between control processes; Control
connection is maintained during entire interactive FTP session.
 Data connection is made between data transfer processes;
Data connection is opened & then closed for each file
transferred.

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 Figure 26.13 Using the control connection

 Control Connection
 Created in same way as other application programs.
 Connection remains open during the entire process.
 Service type used by the IP is minimize delay,
because this is an interactive connection between a
user (human) and a server.
 User types commands and expects to receive
responses without significant delay.
 Data connection
 Opened when data are ready to transfer. Closed
when it is not needed.
 Service type used by IP is maximize throughput.

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 Figure 26.14 Using the data connection

 Communication over control connection

 Uses ASCII character set.
 Each command or response is only one short line, so
we need not worry about file format or file structure.
 Each line is terminated with a two-character
(carriage return and line feed) end-of-line token.
 Communication over data connection
 Client must define the type to be transferred, the
structure of the data, and the transmission mode.
 Heterogeneity is solved by: file type, data structure,
transmission mode.

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  File type
 ASCII file:

By default for transferring text files.

Sender transforms the file from its own representation
to ASCII characters

Receiver transforms the ASCII characters to its own
representation.
 EBCDIC file

If one or both ends of connection use EBCDIC encoding
(used in IBM computers) the file can be transferred
using EBCDIC encoding.
 Image file

Default format for transferring binary files

File is sent as continuous streams of bits without any
interpretation or encoding

Used for compiled programs or images.

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  File is encoded in ASCII or EBCDIC, another
attribute must be added to define the
printability of the file.
 Nonprint

Default format for transferring a text file.

File contains no vertical specifications for printing.

File cannot be printed without further processing
because there are no characters to be interpreted for
vertical movement of the print head.

This format is used for files that will be stored and
processed later.
 TELNET
 File contains ASCII vertical characters such as CR
(carriage return), LF (line feed), NL (new line) and VT
(vertical tab).
 File is printable after transfer.

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  Data structure
 FTP can transfer a file across the data connection
using one of the following interpretations about
structure of data:

File structure (default)
 File has no structure.
 Continuous stream of bytes

Record structure
 File is divided into records (or structs in C).
 Used only with text files.

Page structure
 File is divided into pages, with each page
having a page number and a page header.
 Pages can be stored or accessed randomly or
sequentially.

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  Transmission mode: FTP can transfer a file across the data
connection by using one of following three transmission modes:
 Stream mode

Default mode

Data is delivered from FTP to TCP as a continuous stream of
bytes; TCP is responsible for chopping data into segments of
appropriate size.

End-of-file is closing of data connection by sender.

If data is divided into records, each record will have 1-byte end-
of-record (EOR) character, and the end of the file will have a 1-
byte end-of-file (EOF) character.
 Block mode

Data can be delivered from FTP to TCP in blocks.

Block is preceded by 3-byte header.

1st byte is called the block descriptor; next 2 bytes defines the
size of block in bytes.
 Compressed mode

If file is big, data can be compressed.

Commonly used compression method is run-length encoding.

Consecutive appearance of a data unit are replaced by one
occurrence and number of repetitions. Usually, Blanks in text
file and null characters in binary file are compressed.

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 Figure 26.15 File transfer

 Means of File Transfer

 Retrieving a file: Copy file from server to client.
 Storing a file: copy file from client to server.
 List of directory or file names is to be sent from the
server to the client. Note that FTP treats a list of
directory or file names as a file. It is sent over the
data connection.

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 Example 1
Figure 26.16 (next slide) shows an example of how a file is stored.
1. The control connection is created, and several control
commands and responses are exchanged.
2. Data are transferred record by record.
3. A few commands and responses are exchanged to close the
connection.

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 Figure 26.16 Example 1

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 Table 26.4 List of FTP commands in UNIX

Commands

!, $, account, append, ascii, bell, binary, bye, case, cd, cdup,

close, cr, delete, debug, dir, discount, form, get, glob, hash, help,
lcd, ls, macdef, mdelete, mdir, mget, mkdir, mls, mode, mput,
nmap, ntrans, open, prompt, proxy, sendport, put, pwd, quit,
quote, recv, remotehelp, rename, reset, rmdir, runique, send,
status, struct, sunique, tenex, trace, type, user, verbose,?

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 Example 2
We show some of the user interface commands that accomplish the same task as in
Example 1. The user input is shown in boldface. As shown below, some of the commands
are provided automatically by the interface. The user receives a prompt and provides only
the arguments.

$ ftp challenger.atc.fhda.edu
Connected to challenger.atc.fhda.edu
220 Server ready
Name: forouzan
Password: xxxxxxx
ftp > ls /usr/user/report
200 OK
150 Opening ASCII mode
...........
...........
226 transfer complete
ftp > close
221 Goodbye
ftp > quit

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 Example 3
We show an example of using anonymous [public access OR without an account] FTP.
We connect to internic.net, where we assume there are some public data available.
Sometimes, anonymous as user name and guest as password
$ ftp internic.net
Connected to internic.net
220 Server ready
Name: anonymous
331 Guest login OK, send "guest" as password
Password: guest
ftp > pwd
257 '/' is current directory
ftp > ls
200 OK
150 Opening ASCII mode
bin
...
ftp > close
221 Goodbye
ftp > quit
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