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Mail Proxy With an Attitude

What is the line of defense against spam, email worms and unauthorized emails? SMTP servers employ a mechanism by which those would not get into the system. They use SMTP Proxies. SMTP proxy is basically another server that sits between the mail sender and the recipient. SMTP is a protocol that stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. This defines the rules for sending and receiving messages. The SMTP proxy does a number of useful things, like filtering and load balancing, and has a number of advantages. The SMTP proxy provides connection management. This server can impose a rule on the number of active connections given to clients. As a client, you can probably have one active connection at a time. This means that you can only send a message one at a time. This kind of rule solves the threat of the DoS, or the denial-of-service, attack. A virus that is capable of DoS will request more than the required number of connections, and eventually use up all the connection resources of that particular server. With all the resources gone, no more clients can access that server. The proxy will limit the number of requested connections thereby making the virus as less likely of a threat. In the end, the system will still have enough resources for other clients. The SMTP proxy provides bandwidth throttling. This mechanism limits the amount of data traffic at a particular time. This prevents server crashes. You probably heard of systems that crash because of so many users. That will be a similar case for messages. Too many incoming messages can put down a server. Spammers usually send an enormous amount of emails in an instant. With this throttling, senders will have to wait until they can send again. Legitimate users wait, while spammers give up. The SMTP proxy provides load balancing. In a small message system that receives few messages, one email server will be sufficient. But in today's world, where billions of people interact using emails, one will not be enough. With the proxy, the system can have multiple mail servers, and each server can have a particular load assigned to them at a given time. The proxy's job is basically to manage and assign the load to each server. The SMTP proxy also provides interoperability. This server works on any mail server. This means that you can change mail servers and still use the same proxy. An internet service provider may switch their incoming and outgoing mail servers, and leave the proxy untouched. The SMTP proxy is an invaluable tool in today's world. It can help make mail servers efficient and robust by protecting them from different threats posed by spammers, email worms, and unauthorized email senders.

About the Author:

Peter Garant has written many articles about Proxy Lists for a recently launched website about Proxy Sites. Visit Mail Proxy With an Attitude.