932
edits
Changes
m
Fixing typo
=== Services involved in email delivery ===
In reality, the terms '''MTA''', '''MDA''', '''MUA''', '''LDA''' can actually be considered misleading since some of those services can be combined together to form a single entity (application), while other applications may operate as separate entities. There may be overlap, so if you don't find those acronyms helpful, don't worry too much about them. On the other hand, when referred to in diagrams, they can help to visualize those processes when try trying to understand how an e-mail system works.
[http://wiki.dovecot.org/MailServerOverview Here's an overview] of those terms (from the Dovecot wiki). It is worth viewing this link.
** Thus, a situation can occur that although you sent your email successfully, it may never make it to your "Sent" folder - the <u>second</u> connection to your IMAP server is quite unrelated to the first connection to the '''SMTP''' server.
* Note that a DNS server is also involved - it is needed to retrieve the address of the email server responsible for email for a particular domain. This is done with MX records.
===Online References===
