Simple Message Transport Protocol

Abstract

Mail Servers Use SMTP to transmit messages across the Internet. A mail server on the Internet will accept connections using SMTP and store messages in the recipients’ mailbox. Some mail servers also use SMTP to forward messages on to peers. SMTP is a protocol primarily concerned with sending, forwarding, and storing e-mail. People downloading mail from a server will generally use POP (see Chapter 11) or IMAP (see Chapter 12). For Python programmers, SMTP is usually most interesting for sending e-mail.