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Date:	Mon, 25 Sep 2000 11:41:03 PDT
From:	Terry Warren <twarren@alumni.caltech.edu >
Reply-To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Programming: SMTP handshaking ?

Content Type: text/plain

At 11:21 PM 9/24/2000 -0700, you wrote:
>I'm writing an email client utility. So far my code does the DNS lookup
>on the mail server domain name and then opens a socket to the server on
>port 109. (I presume that's the proper port - I looked in
>\mptn\etc\services and found it. There's also port 25 but I seem to
>remember that's not the proper one.)

there is a different protocol for sending email and for receiving email. To
receive, if you're talking to a POP3 server, you would use port 110; to
send, via SMTP you would use port 25. For receiving, the commands most
frequently used are:

USER userid
PASS password

these must go first to establish a valid connection to the server.

QUIT

is used at the end to terminate the connection.

In between you can use commands such as:
LIST
STAT
UIDL n
RETR n
DELE n

LIST gives a list of messages and sizes
STAT returns how many messages are on the server
UIDL n fetches the header info for message number n
RETR n fetches message number n
DELE n deletes message number n

>RFC 821 doesn't have the handshaking sequence I need. Can anyone point
>me at the document that tells the handshake sequence for asking if
>there's any mail waiting on the server? I assume there are USER and
>PASSword messages involved, maybe HELO and RSET, plus a command that
>queries the status of the user's mailbox.
>
>Thanks,
>
>- Peter
>
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