On Tue, Dec 15, 1998 at 01:19:16AM +0200, shaul wrote: > > I am using exmh to handle my email (MUA ?). The MTA is smail (is it also the > MDA ? What are the differences between MDA and MTA ?).
MUA: Mail User Agent: interactive mailer examples: mutt, pine, Outlook, etc. MTA: Mail Transfer Agent: relays mail between hosts (usually via SMTP). examples: exim, sendmail, qmail. MDA: Mail Delivery Agent: delivers mail to users at a destination host. Sometimes, the MTA is also the MDA (for example, when exim puts mail directly into your mailbox with the "appendfile" rule). At other times, "deliver" or procmail might be acting as an MDA. Interestingly, delivery at the far end by the MDA, not transport across the Internet, is responsible for almost all of the time delay in sending email. miket
