Explain the process of sending an email.

(SMTP, POP3 and IMAP)

SMTP:
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the standard protocol for sending emails across the
Internet.
By default, the SMTP protocol works on three ports:
Port 25 - this is the default SMTP non-encrypted port
Port 2525 - this port is opened on all SiteGround servers in case port 25 is filtered (by
your ISP for example) and you want to send non-encrypted emails with SMTP
Port 465 - this is the port used, if you want to send messages using SMTP securely

POP3:
Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) is a standard mail protocol used to receive
emails from a remote server to a local email client. POP3 allows you to download email
messages on your local computer and read them even when you are offline. Note, that when
you use POP3 to connect to your email account, messages are downloaded locally and
removed from the servers. This means that if you access your account from multiple
locations, that may not be the best option for you. On the other hand, if you use POP3, your
messages are stored on your local computer, which reduces the space your email account uses
on your web server.
By default, the POP3 protocol works on two ports:
Port 110 - this is the default POP3 non-encrypted port
Port 995 - this is the port you need to use if you want to connect using POP3 securely

IMAP:
The Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is a mail protocol used for accessing email on
a remote web server from a local client. IMAP and POP3 are the two most commonly used
Internet mail protocols for retrieving emails. Both protocols are supported by all modern
email clients and web servers.
While the POP3 protocol assumes that your email is being accessed only from one
application, IMAP allows simultaneous access by multiple clients. This is why IMAP is more
suitable for you if you're going to access your email from different locations or if your
messages are managed by multiple users.
By default, the IMAP protocol works on two ports:
Port 143 - this is the default IMAP non-encrypted port
Port 993 - this is the port you need to use if you want to connect using IMAP securely

Short Note on DNS

The Domain Name System (DNS) is basically a large database which resides on various
computers and it contains the names and IP addresses of various hosts on the internet and
various domains. The Domain Name System is used to provide information to the Domain
Name Service to use when queries are made. The service is the act of querying the database,

and the system is the data structure and data itself. The Domain Name System is similar to a
file system in Unix or DOS starting with a root. Branches attach to the root to create a huge
set of paths. Each branch in the DNS is called a label. Each label can be 63 characters long,
but most are less. Each text word between the dots can be 63 characters in length, with the
total domain name (all the labels) limited to 255 bytes in overall length. The domain name
system database is divided into sections called zones. The name servers in their respective
zones are responsible for answering queries for their zones. A zone is a subtree of DNS and is
administered separately. There are multiple name servers for a zone. There is usually one
primary name server and one or more secondary name servers. A name server may be
authoritative for more than one zone.
DNS names are assigned through the Internet Registries by the Internet Assigned Number
Authority (IANA). The domain name is a name assigned to an internet domain. For example,
mycollege.edu represents the domain name of an educational institution. The names
microsoft.com and 3Com.com represent the domain names at those commercial companies.
Naming hosts within the domain is up to individuals administer their domain.
Access to the Domain name database is through a resolver which may be a program or part of
an operating system that resides on users workstations. In Unix the resolver is accessed by
using the library functions "gethostbyname" and "gethostbyaddr". The resolver will send
requests to the name servers to return information requested by the user. The requesting
computer tries to connect to the name server using its IP address rather than the name.

Explain X.25 and Frame relay.

X.25
X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for packet switched wide area network
(WAN) communication. An X.25 WAN consists of packet-switching exchange (PSE) nodes
as the networking hardware, and leased lines, plain old telephone service connections, or
ISDN connections as physical links.
The general concept of X.25 was to create a universal and global packet-switched network.
Much of the X.25 system is a description of the rigorous error correction needed to achieve
this, as well as more efficient sharing of capital-intensive physical resources.
X.25 originally defined three basic protocol levels or architectural layers:

Physical layer: This layer specifies the physical, electrical, functional and
procedural characteristics to control the physical link between a DTE and a DCE.
Common implementations use X.21, EIA-232, EIA-449 or other serial protocols.
Data link layer: The data link layer consists of the link access procedure for data
interchange on the link between a DTE and a DCE. In its implementation, the
Link Access Procedure, Balanced (LAPB) is a data link protocol that manages a
communication session and controls the packet framing. It is a bit-oriented
protocol that provides error correction and orderly delivery.

Packet layer: This layer defined a packet-layer protocol for exchanging control
and user data packets to form a packet-switching network based on virtual calls,
according to the Packet Layer Protocol.

The X.25 model was based on the traditional telephony concept of establishing reliable
circuits through a shared network, but using software to create "virtual calls" through the
network. These calls interconnect "data terminal equipment" (DTE) providing endpoints to
users, which looked like point-to-point connections. Each endpoint can establish many
separate virtual calls to different endpoints.

Frame Relay
Frame Relay is a standardized wide area network technology that specifies the physical and
data link layers of digital telecommunications channels using a packet switching
methodology. Originally designed for transport across Integrated Services Digital Network
(ISDN) infrastructure, it may be used today in the context of many other network interfaces.
Network providers commonly implement Frame Relay for voice (VoFR) and data as an
encapsulation technique used between local area networks (LANs) over a wide area network
(WAN). Each end-user gets a private line (or leased line) to a Frame Relay node. The Frame
Relay network handles the transmission over a frequently changing path transparent to all
end-user extensively used WAN protocols. It is less expensive than leased lines and that is
one reason for its popularity. The extreme simplicity of configuring user equipment in a
Frame Relay network offers another reason for Frame Relay's popularity.
Frame Relay has its technical base in the older X.25 packet-switching technology, designed
for transmitting data on analog voice lines. Unlike X.25, whose designers expected analog
signals with a relatively high chance of transmission errors, Frame Relay is a fast packet
switching technology operating over links with a low chance of transmission errors (usually
practically lossless like PDH), which means that the protocol does not attempt to correct
errors. When a Frame Relay network detects an error in a frame, it simply drops that frame.
The end points have the responsibility for detecting and retransmitting dropped frames.
(However, digital networks offer an incidence of error extraordinarily small relative to that of
analog networks.)
Frame Relay originated as an extension of integrated services digital network (ISDN). Its
designers aimed to enable a packet-switched network to transport over circuit-switched
technology. The technology has become a stand-alone and cost-effective means of creating a
WAN.
Frame Relay switches create virtual circuits to connect remote LANs to a WAN. The Frame
Relay network exists between a LAN border device, usually a router, and the carrier switch.
The technology used by the carrier to transport data between the switches is variable and may
differ among carriers (i.e., to function, a practical Frame Relay implementation need not rely
solely on its own transportation mechanism).

Each Frame Relay protocol data unit (PDU) consists of the following fields:
1. Flag Field. The flag is used to perform high-level data link synchronization which
indicates the beginning and end of the frame with the unique pattern 01111110. To
ensure that the 01111110 pattern does not appear somewhere inside the frame, bit
stuffing and de-stuffing procedures are used.
2. Address Field. Each address field may occupy either octet 2 to 3, octet 2 to 4, or octet
2 to 5, depending on the range of the address in use. A two-octet address field
comprises the EA=ADDRESS FIELD EXTENSION BITS and the
C/R=COMMAND/RESPONSE BIT.
1. DLCI-Data Link Connection Identifier Bits. The DLCI serves to identify the
virtual connection so that the receiving end knows which information
connection a frame belongs to. Note that this DLCI has only local
significance. A single physical channel can multiplex several different virtual
connections.
2. FECN, BECN, DE bits. These bits report congestion:
FECN=Forward Explicit Congestion Notification bit
BECN=Backward Explicit Congestion Notification bit
DE=Discard Eligibility bit
3. Information Field. A system parameter defines the maximum number of data bytes
that a host can pack into a frame. Hosts may negotiate the actual maximum frame
length at call set-up time. The standard specifies the maximum information field size
(supportable by any network) as at least 262 octets. Since end-to-end protocols
typically operate on the basis of larger information units, Frame Relay recommends
that the network support the maximum value of at least 1600 octets in order to avoid
the need for segmentation and reassembling by end-users.
4. Frame Check Sequence (FCS) Field. Since one cannot completely ignore the bit
error-rate of the medium, each switching node needs to implement error detection to
avoid wasting bandwidth due to the transmission of erred frames. The error detection
mechanism used in Frame Relay uses the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) as its basis.