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IMAP4, LDAP or POP-3???

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by jena_ann

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I have a project due for my Advanced Networking class....the topic is..."Email: What should you be doing - IMAP4, LDAP,
POP-3" If anyone could give me some information on this or a website to go to I'd really appreciate it. I can not find anything.

7 replies

by doughayden

As with so many other things, the start of the answer is, "It depends on the circumstances..."

If you're supporting users who retrieve email from multiple machines, then IMAP is the way to go, since only copies of headers are loaded to the clientuntil the message is actually opened. The downside to this is that the server gets loaded up with messages (many users NEVER delete messages) unless a 'retirement' policy is set up that email messages are deleted after X days (pick your X)

POP3 is the most common, since it was the first (I think). It doesn't really have all the features that some users would like, though; for instance, it doesn't give you the option of previewing the size of messages before downloading them, which can be a real annoyance on a slow modem line.

Good Luck!

by rcc

Hi
LDAP cannot retreive/send e-mail, as far as I know. This is a directory, not a messaging protocol.
Here are the RFC's, which defines the standards for IMAP, LDAP and POP3 (there are no spaces in the URLS!). This should be a good point to start from.
IMAP: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2060.html
POP3: http://kt-www.jaist.ac.jp:8000/~ttate/cvs/icc/rfc/pop3/rfc1939.txt
LDAP: http://perl-ldap.sourceforge.net/perl-ldap-0.22/htdocs/Net/LDAP/RFC.html
I hope this helps.
Regards,
Radu

by william jay

Basics:

Pop3 mail is by far the easiest to setup and administer, depending a bit on the particular server chosen. The installed base world-wide is huge, so most of the problems are worked out already, and inter-operability is pretty much guaranteed across all platforms and across all types of domains that allow tcp-ip traffic. The name of its, counterpart - Simple Mail Transport Protocol or SMTP, pretty much says it all.

This Tech Republic site, in the IT Manager and NetAdmin sections especially, has many of those angles covered, so wander around and continue to be inquisitive ...

See also:
\\**fix the links and take out spaces, (%20%), if inserted by this TR editor**\
http://www.techweb.com/

http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm?term=IMAP&Define=Define

http://www.techweb.com/search/search?coll=ALL-TWB&queryText=LDAP

http://search.novell.com/

http://search.novell.com/NSearch/SearchServlet?query0=LDAP

and so on ...

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