National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (NUCES) Islamabad
Computer Networks Lab
Fall 2024
Week 05
SMTP server
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
SMTP is the behind-the-scenes protocol that lets you send and receive emails. Not sure what it does or how it
works? You've come to the right place. Emails play a big role in how we communicate, but what happens when
we send an email? The process of sending an email is similar to mailing a physical letter: through a series of steps,
an organized system takes care of the envelope and drops it off to the recipient. However, with emails, the SMTP
server acts like the post carrier—though that’s just the beginning.
As the “T” in its name indicates, SMTP is a transport protocol: All it does is move messages from point A to
point B. Like many other Internet protocols, SMTP is intended to be used on top of the Transmission Control
Protocol (TCP), which guarantees reliable delivery of the individual packets that make up a conversation. The
use of IP means that we can depend on SMTP to eventually get the message contents to a server, but what happens
to it after that is up to the server. Imagine what happens when a delivery driver leaves a package at your office on
a Saturday. What happens to it after delivery isn’t his problem. Deliverability, monitoring, tracking,
authentication, and encryption are all examples of services that SMTP doesn’t necessarily provide itself but that
are still very valuable.
SMTP Walk through task on Packet Tracer
Step 1: Create a simple topology as shown in the image below
Step 2: Assign ip addresses to the systems and the server
Step 3: Go to the desktop of the systems and then choose email, an interface this in the image below will appear.
National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (NUCES) Islamabad
Step 4: Fill in the fields as such
Step 5: Configure mail client on the other pc as well.
Step 6: To configure the email server, click on the server, then click Services tab, pick email server from the
menu. Provide the Domain name of the server then click on Set to set it. In this example I’ve used the name
‘mail.com’.
Step 7: Proceed and add users and provide their passwords. I have two email clients(users) with usernames ‘pc1‘
and ‘pc2‘ with a password the same as the usernames.
After entering a username and password, click on Add(+) to add the user to the server. You can optionally remove
a user by clicking on Remove (-). You can change a user’s password by clicking on change password.
National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (NUCES) Islamabad
Step 8: Set a domain name for the email server. For that reason, we should have a DNS server that will resolve
this domain name (plus other domain names if there were) to an IP address. So let’s configure a DNS server.
Click the DNS server, click Services tab, then pick DNS. Turn the service ON. Set name-address pairs and add
them to the server. You can view the DNS entry below:
Step 9: test the email service. Go to PC0 email client, compose an email and send its to PC1 email address
([email protected]).
National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (NUCES) Islamabad
Step 10: go to the email portion of PC2 and check for the email, reply to the email received.
National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (NUCES) Islamabad
Practice tasks
Task 1:
Construct a client server model in mesh topology. Use 5 systems attached to a separate switch. Attach a server in
such a way that it provides SMTP services to all. Send email from one system to other to check the correctness
of the topology.
Task 2:
Construct a client server model in ring topology. Use 4 systems attached to a separate switch. Attach a server in
such a way that it provides SMTP services to all. Send email from one system to other to check the correctness
of the topology.
Task 3:
Construct a client server model in bus topology. Use 9 systems attached to 3 hubs (3 systems with 1 hub). Attach
a server in such a way that it provides SMTP services to all. You must assign dynamic ip addresses to the systems.
Send email from one system to other to check the correctness of the topology.
Task 4:
Construct a client server model in a star topology. Use 4 systems attached to a single hub. Attach a server in such
a way that it provides SMTP, and DNS services to all. You must assign dynamic ip addresses to the systems.
Send email from one system to other to check the correctness of the topology.
Submission cercaria:
• Attach .pkt files to the GCR portal
• You are required to attach screenshots to support your working.
• DO NOT ZIP YOUR WORK
