On 23 Jul 2004 22:41:22 -0700
Post by Rahul LakshmananHi,
I would like some help on how to implement an
e-mail system that works not only within the LAN
but can also send and receive messages to/from
any ID. I know C++ but have very little idea
about how networks work and how to connect
computers through a program.
I would deeply appreciate any guidance/help that
you may be able to provide.
Thanks,
Rahul Lakshmanan
Hello Rahul,
I will answer based on the idea that
this is for your computer science related
education. If this is purely technical, you would
be better off in a technical support newsgroup.
Some thoughts on your inquiry:
1) you will not be able to implement a mail system
without quite a specific idea about how networks
work and how to connect computers "through
programs".
2) you will need to familiarize yourself with
concepts of the SMTP mail transport protocol
(http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc0821.txt). A start
could reading Point 3 of
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Mail-Administrator-HOWTO.html.
3) Usually there is no need to implement an e-mail
system yourself (again). There are dozens of API
and complete servers available, many of those are
excellent Open Source systems. If you are
interested in a mail server you should probably
read up on "sendmail".
4) If this doesn´t start you off in the right
direction, you´re probably not at the point where
you should start thinking about implementing an
email system. If you give more information about
what specifically you´re trying to do, you will
most probably get more help. If you manage to
awaken interest in the audience, your chances of
meaningful help rise exponentially. Where are you
at, are you a student, is it a commercial project,
what are you trying to do, what technologies do
you want to use - all these things are of interest
to people reading comp.edu
5) Keep it up. All the best, good luck.
Cheers, Björn.
--
Björn van der Meer
Erkrath, Germany