What is a Mail eXchange or Email mail delivery agent (MDA | LDA)?

About

A mail delivery agent (MDA) or Mail eXchange 1) is a SMTP server that is responsible for the local delivery (reception) of e-mail messages to a mailbox

It's also known as:

  • message delivery agent (MDA)
  • local delivery agent (LDA)
  • Mail eXchange (MX)

An MDA gets normally the messages from an MTA (Smtp Server) and delivers them to a mailbox (real or virtual).

Mx record

The email servers IP are set in the DNS via the MX record. This is how a server knows to which server a message should be sent.

For instance, with the email address [email protected], the MTA server will:

Port

The submission port is the port 25.

List

1)
wiki/Mail_delivery_agent




Discover More
Email - Mailbox

A mailbox is a file where the emails message are stored. A user application (known as MUA) can read and write a mailbox The Mail Delivery Agent will write the email received by the SMTP server (MTA)...
Email - Mille and one way to send an email (professional and user)

This article shows you Mille and one way to send an email (ie known as transport in SMTP. submission port Before continuing, you need to know the basics of email and how it works with SMTP. If you...
How does the email system work? SMTP, POP, IMAP explained

This page gives you the foundations of the email system. At the end, you should be able to understand why when you configure your email client, you need to set up: The SMTP configuration And the...
How to send an email at the command line with SMTP? Email transaction explained

This page is a how-to that describes how you can transport an email to a SMTP server at the command line using the SMTP protocol for further delivery It will show you the inner mechanisms of SMTP. Below...
Postfix Redirect Email Example
Postfix - Virtual Aliasing (Email Redirect)

The main applications of virtual aliasing are: To redirect mail for one address to one or more addresses. To implement virtual alias domains where all addresses are aliased to addresses...
The SMTP Protocol

A summary of what the SMTP protocol is and how to send an email from a network connection with telnet or netcat
What are the SMTP Ports? (25, 465, 587)

This article regroups all information and configuration around this subject
What is Hosting? (or hosted domains for HTTP, Email, )

Hosting is when the domains of a request are not directly associated with the machine's name. The domains are then called hosted. web hosting is when a web/http server is provided to you. You...
What is Sendmail ?

Sendmail was the first well-known SMTP server. The server has the following components: * a mail transfer agent (MTA) to send mail to the outside world * a mail deliver agent (MDA) to receive email...



Share this page:
Follow us:
Task Runner