Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations Chris Miller on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
What is MTA function in mail server system ?
- Thread starter Johnthom
- Start date
Hi,
MTA is Mail Transfer Agent. This is a server that supports the SMTP protocol - for Linux this would be sendmail, postfix, or qmail most probably. Basically what MTAs do is transfer mail - when you send email to joe@user.com it will ascertain the MX records for the domain part of the address using DNS, and will attempt to connect directly to port 25 of the preferred Mail exchanger just resolved. The two smtp servers talk to each other and the mail is transferred.
Contrast this to a MDA (Mail delivery Agent) like Netscape Mail, MS/Outlook or Evolution. These programs talk to pop3 or imap servers that deliver the mail collected by the MTA to individual users.
Rgds
MTA is Mail Transfer Agent. This is a server that supports the SMTP protocol - for Linux this would be sendmail, postfix, or qmail most probably. Basically what MTAs do is transfer mail - when you send email to joe@user.com it will ascertain the MX records for the domain part of the address using DNS, and will attempt to connect directly to port 25 of the preferred Mail exchanger just resolved. The two smtp servers talk to each other and the mail is transferred.
Contrast this to a MDA (Mail delivery Agent) like Netscape Mail, MS/Outlook or Evolution. These programs talk to pop3 or imap servers that deliver the mail collected by the MTA to individual users.
Rgds
- Status
Similar threads
