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SMTP Commands
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| HELO sendinghostname |
This command initiates the SMTP conversation. The host connecting to the remote SMTP server identifies itself by it’s fully qualified DNS host name. |
| EHLO sendinghostname |
An alternative command for starting the conversation. This states that the sending server wants to use the extended SMTP (ESMTP) protocol. |
| MAIL From:<source email address> |
This is the start of an email message. The source email address is what will appear in the “From:” field of the message. |
| RCPT To:<destination email address> |
This identifies the receipient of the email message. This command can be repeated multiple times for a given message in order to deliver a single message to multiple receipients. |
| SIZE=numberofbytes |
The size command tells the remote sendmail system the size of the attached message in bytes. If ommited, mail readers and delivery agents will try to determine the size of a message based on indicators such as them being terminated by a “.” on a line by themselves and headers being sent on a line separated from body text by a blank line. But these methods get confused when you have headers or header like information embedded in messages, attachements, etc. |
| DATA |
This command signifies that a stream of data, ie the email message body, will follow. The stream of data is terminated by a “.” on a line by itself. |
| QUIT |
This terminates an SMTP connection. Multiple email messages can be transfered during a single TCP/IP connection. This allows for more efficient transfer of email. To start another email message in the same session, simply issue another “MAIL” command. |
| RSET |
The RSET command performs an SMTP reset, and then aborts the message that is currently being sent. |
| TURN |
The TURN command is used only in dial-up environments. For example, a recipient that doesn’t host his own mail server would rely on an ISP’s SMTP server. The MX record for the recipient’s domain would therefore point to the ISP’s SMTP server.When the recipient needed to retrieve mail from the ISP’s SMTP server, he could establish a connection, and then issue the TURN command. This command polls the host for any messages that have been queued. |
| VRFY username |
This command will request that the receiving SMTP server verify that a given email username is valid. The SMTP server will reply with the login name of the user. This feature can be turned off in sendmail because allowing it can be a security hole. VRFY commands can be used to probe for login names on a system. See the security section below for information about turning off this feature. |
| EXPN aliasname |
EXPN is similar to VRFY, except that when used with a distribution list, it will list all users on that list. This can be a bigger problem than the “VRFY” command since sites often have an alias such as “all”. |
Subject:
Cc:
Reply-To: |
Email header lines are not SMTP commands per se. They are sent in the DATA stream for a message. Header lines appear on a line by themselves, and are seperated from the body of a message by a blank line. |
