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cameroneckelberry2
8,701 PointsEMLI5 How SMTP and MX works?
Hey All, I'm really having a hard time getting a full understanding of SMTP and MX. A lot of the resources I'm finding online are not simple enough for my 5 year old mind :P Anyone have a simple way of explaining it ?
As, a side note, I would like to formally request a thorough Digital Literacy course on how email works!
2 Answers
Kevin Korte
28,149 PointsIt's complex yes, and you probably don't ever need to really understand the complete inner workings, but you'll want to know a bit if you're going to be a web developer. Our jobs not to make mail servers work, but just to send email through them.
SMTP is Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, and it's what most all mail servers (or all, not sure) use to transmit emails between themselves. It's a standardized way the actual email is formatted.
MX usually refers to MX records, which live on a name server somewhere. It points the mail to the correct area when a server receives an email.
What's got you tripping? I'll see if I can help.
cameroneckelberry2
8,701 PointsOk, well maybe this is my basic confusion. Basically at my company we always put as the smtp to set up email as mx1.companyName.net
cameroneckelberry2
8,701 Pointscameroneckelberry2
8,701 PointsThanks man! I appreciate you taking the time! I guess I'm getting confused because you can use an mx server as an smtp. Like there isn't always SMTP per say, but it's MX1.cats.net
Kevin Korte
28,149 PointsKevin Korte
28,149 PointsNo problem. I'm not aware of a MX server. I know there are MX records, and those records direct mail to an smtp mail server.
Do you have a link or something to the server type you're talking about. I can find one on google.