[Users] What happens ...

[Charles Curley]

On Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:39:16 +0100
Michael <codejodler at gmx.ch> wrote:

> I looked into the wikipedia 'Mail_server' and related articles but
> could not find a statement that clarifies this (simple enough for
> me). But it say, "An MTA implements both the client (sending) and
> server (receiving) portions of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol."
> and i am wondering if that means the MTA is also doing the POP.

SMTP defines transferring mail from one machine to another, so it was
used for both directions. POP, a more recent protocol, handles reading
mail from a remote server. Since you can also copy it to the local
machine, and then delete it on the server, it is used for fetching mail.

Usually an MTA handles SMTP only, leaving POP to POP servers and
clients. This is consistent with the Unix rule for programs: do one
thing and do it very well.

The whole MTA/MUA/etc terminology predate POP, so with POP they can be
confusing.

And IMAP is even later than POP.



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