8.1 The MTA Functionality

The Message Transfer Agent, or MTA is a component of the Messaging Server (Figure 8–1). At its most basic level, the MTA is a message router. It accepts messages from other servers, reads the address, and routes it to the next server on way to its final destination, typically a user’s mailbox.

Over the years, a lot of functionality has been added to the MTA, and with it, size, power, and complexity. These MTA functions overlap, but, in general, can be classified as follows:

• Routing. Accepts a message, expands or transforms it if necessary (for example if it is an alias), and routes it to the next server, channel, program, file, or whatever. The routing function has been expanded to allow administrator specification of the internal and external mechanics of how messages are routed. For example, it is possible to specify things such as SMTP authentication, use of various SMTP commands and protocol, TCP/IP or DNS lookup support, job submission, process control and message queueing and so on.

• Address Rewriting. Envelope addresses are often rewritten as part of the routing process, but envelope or header addresses can also be rewritten to a more desired or appropriate form.

• Filtering. The MTA can filter messages based on address, domain, possible virus or spam content, size, IP address, header content, and so on. Filtered messages can be discarded, rejected, modified, sent to a file, sent to a program, or be sent to the next server on its way to a user mailbox.

• Content Modification. Message headers or content can be modified. Example: making a message readable to a specific client or in a specific character set or checking for spam or viruses.

• Auditing. Tracking who submitted what, where and when.

A number of subcomponents and processes support these functions and are shown in Figure 8–2. This chapter describes these subcomponents and processes. In addition, a number of tools allow system administrators to enable and configure these functions. These include MTA options, configutil parameters, mapping tables, keywords, channels, and rewrite rules. These are described in later MTA chapters:

• Chapter 10, About MTA Services and Configuration

• Chapter 11, Configuring Rewrite Rules

• Chapter 12, Configuring Channel Definitions

• Chapter 13, Using Predefined Channels

• Chapter 14, Integrating Spam and Virus Filtering Programs Into Messaging Server

• Chapter 16, LMTP Delivery

• Chapter 17, Vacation Automatic Message Reply

• Chapter 18, Mail Filtering and Access Control

• Chapter 23, Configuring Security and Access Control

• Chapter 25, Managing Logging

• Chapter 26, Troubleshooting the MTA

• Chapter 27, Monitoring Messaging Server

Figure 8–1 Messaging Server, Simplified Components View (Communications Express not Shown)

Figure 8–2 MTA Architecture