Chapter 26

Remote Logging,
Electronic Mail,
and File Transfer

26.1 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
 26-1 REMOTE LOGGING

It would be impossible to write a specific client/server

program for each demand. The better solution is a
general-purpose client/server program that lets a user
access any application program on a remote computer.

Topics discussed in this section:

TELNET
SSH

26.2
 Note

TELNET is a general-purpose
client/server application program.

Remote virtual terminal

One server supports multiple VTs.

26.3
 Example of Telnet (Character mode)

Image from Dr. Wang’s course at:

26.4 http://www.cse.scu.edu/~mwang2/tcpip/
 Some Common Features of Telnet

• Telnet is on a single TCP connection to port 23

• Telnet connection is unencrypted
• So easy for eavesdropper!
• In most cases, telnet is a remote terminal. Each
character is transmitted in a separated packet
• The same is true for SSH login stage
• A feature that could be exploited for “timing
attack”.

26.5
 Telnet Commands

• telnet longwood.eecs.ucf.edu (eecs email

server)
• setup a remote shell to the server
• It will be denied since most Unix servers
nowadays do not support telnet
• telnet longwood.eecs.ucf.edu 25
• Setup a TCP connection to port 25 (email
service)
• We will show this usage in Email lecture

26.6
 SSH – Secure Shell

• Replacement of old unsecure Telnet program

• Both ends authenticate with each other
• Rely on public key cryptography
• Will introduce PK in last chapter
• All communication messages are encrypted

• SSH is used also as a secure tunneling channel

for other applications
• File transfer
• Port forwarding (such as X window)
26.7 • Virtual private network (VPN)
 SSH – Secure Shell

• Under Unix machine:

• Hidden directory .ssh saves all configuration
files
• “known_hosts” saves public keys of all
previous connected SSH servers
• Attacker cannot impersonates as a known
SSH server anymore
• Have to trust what you get in the first
connection attempt

26.8
 SSH Programs and Usages

• Many open source ssh client software

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_SSH_clients
• PuTTY

• SSH uses TCP connection on port 22

• Login methods:
• Password
• private key kept on client, public key stored
on server (come to this in later security chapter)

26.9
 26-2 ELECTRONIC MAIL

One of the most popular Internet services is electronic

mail (e-mail). The designers of the Internet probably
never imagined the popularity of this application
program. Its architecture consists of several
components that we discuss in this chapter.

Topics discussed in this section:

Architecture
User Agent
Message Transfer Agent: SMTP
Message Access Agent: POP and IMAP
Web-Based Mail
26.10
 Figure 26.6 First scenario in electronic mail

MUA: mail user agent

26.11
 Note

When the sender and the receiver of an

e-mail are on the same system,
we need only two user agents.

MUA:Outlook Express, Netscape

Messenger, Mozilla Thunderbird,
Eudora, Foxmail,…….

26.12
 Note

When the sender and the receiver of an

e-mail are on different systems,
Wikipidia shows a good example of
email operation (next page)

26.13
 Typical Email Operation (from Wikipidia)

Could also be
IMAP4

Email server’s DNS DNS query for MX

name and IP RR
26.14
 Client’s Email Operation Mode
• Remote terminal using SSH to email server
directly
• Then uses MUA on email server
• Such as Pine, Elm on Unix machines
• Use MUA on a client’s own computer
• The MUA formats and sends email to
sender’s email server
• Web-based email systems using web browser
• Gmail, yahoo mail, hotmail,….
• Spammer: program a simple code sending
26.15
email to email servers via SMTP protocol
 Figure 26.11 Services of user agent

26.16
 Note

Some examples of command-driven

user agents are mail, pine,
and elm (under Unix).

26.17
 Note

Some examples of GUI-based user

agents are Eudora, Outlook, and
Netscape.

26.18
 Figure 26.12 Format of an e-mail

26.19
 Figure 26.13 E-mail address

• Sender uses DNS query for MX record on the

domain name in order to find the name and IP
of the target email server

26.20
 Figure 26.14 MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)

NVT: network virtual terminal

(telnet)

SMTP protocol only this data

26.21
 MIME

• User agents makes the translation between

non-ASCII data and ASCII email message
• If you check the source file of an email that has
attachment, you will find the MIME usage
• This is the main reason why your email with an
attachment becomes bigger?

26.22
 Figure 26.15 MIME header

26.23
 Table 26.5 Data types and subtypes in MIME

26.24
 Table 26.6 Content-transfer-encoding

26.25
 Figure 26.16 SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) range

POP3 or IMAP4

26.26
 Figure 26.17 Commands and responses

26.27
 Figure 26.18 Command format

26.28
 Table 26.7 Commands

26.29
 Table 26.8 Responses

26.30
 Table 26.8 Responses (continued)

26.31
 Example 26.3

Let us see how we can directly use SMTP to send an

e-mail and simulate the commands and responses we
described in this section. We use TELNET to log into port
25 (the service port for SMTP). We then use the
commands directly to send an e-mail.

Through this process, you can see why you cannot trust
the “sender” or any part of a received email, why email
spam is so easy to be generated.

26.32
Sample email sending using telnet
“telnet longwood.cs.ucf.edu 25”
C: HELO fake.domain
S: 250 Hello crepes.fr, pleased to meet you
C: MAIL FROM: <alice@crepes.fr>
S: 250 alice@crepes.fr... Sender ok
C: RCPT TO: <bob@gmail.com>
S: 250 bob@gmail.com ... Recipient ok
C: DATA
S: 354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself
C: from: “fake man” <fake@fake.fake.fake>
C: to: “dr. who” <who@who>
C: subject: who am I?
C: Do you like ketchup?
C: How about pickles?
C: .
S: 250 Message accepted for delivery
C: QUIT
S: 221 longwood.cs.ucf.edu closing connection
Try SMTP interaction for yourself:
 telnet servername 25
 see 220 reply from server
 enter HELO, MAIL FROM, RCPT TO, DATA, QUIT
commands
 “mail from” the domain may need to be
existed
 “rcpt to” the user needs to be existed
 A mail server may or may not support “relay”
Enable you send email without using email user agent
 What is “email open relay”?
 An open mail relay is an SMTP server configured in
such a way that it allows anyone on the Internet to send
e-mail through it, not just mail destined to or originating
from known users.
 This used to be the default configuration in many mail
servers and it was the way the Internet was initially set
up
 But open mail relays have become unpopular due to
their exploitation by spammers. Many relays were
closed, or were placed on blacklists by other servers.

From wikipiedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_mail_relay

26.35
 Email Server in Our Department
 EECS email server: longwood.eecs.ucf.edu
 Before this year, CS email server supports
relay from inside campus
 You can use telnet to send manual email from
any computer inside campus network
 Now it is more restrict, only support relay from
some fixed computers (such as eustis Unix
machine)
 Eustis machine: eustis.eecs.ucf.edu
26.36
 NOTES: Ethnical Issue on Manual Sending Email

• Do not try to use telnet on department email

server except for the homework!
• Do not try to use it to spam your friends
without upfront notice!

26.37
 Figure 26.19 POP3 (Post Office Protocol) and IMAP4 (Internet Mail Access
Protocol)

26.38
 Figure 26.20 The exchange of commands and responses in POP3

26.39
POP3 protocol (tcp: 110)
S: +OK POP3 server ready
C: user bob
authorization phase S: +OK
C: pass hungry
 client commands: S: +OK user successfully logged on
 user: declare username
C: list
 pass: password
S: 1 498 Length(bytes)
 server responses S: 2 912
 +OK S: .
 -ERR C: retr 1
S: <message 1 contents>
transaction phase, client: S: .
 list: list message numbers C: dele 1
C: retr 2
 retr: retrieve message by
S: <message 1 contents>
number
S: .
 dele: delete C: dele 2
 quit C: quit
S: +OK POP3 server signing off
Telnet example
40
 POP3 and IMAP4

• IMAP4 provides more functionalities

• Both POP3 and IMAP4 have corresponding
encrypted protocols

26.41
 Web-based Email

• Email clients use web browser for all

interactions
• A user can access his/her email at any where,
via any computer that has Internet access
• Email provider may provide more functions
• Gmail has very good search capability
• Gmail has the message grouping function
• Many provide bundled services with their
other products
• Voice/video, photo sharing, ….
26.42
 26-3 FILE TRANSFER

Transferring files from one computer to another is one

of the most common tasks expected from a networking
or internetworking environment. As a matter of fact,
the greatest volume of data exchange in the Internet
today is due to file transfer.

Topics discussed in this section:

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
Anonymous FTP

26.43
 Note

FTP uses the services of TCP. It needs

two TCP connections.

The well-known port 21 is used for the

control connection and the well-known
port 20 for the data connection.

26.44
 Figure 26.21 FTP

26.45
 Figure 26.22 Using the control connection

26.46
 Figure 26.23 Using the data connection

26.47
 Example 26.4 (continued)

26.48
 Example 26.5

We show an example of anonymous FTP. We assume

that some public data are available at internic.net.

continued on next slide

26.49
 Example 26.5 (continued)

26.50
 Dying of FTP

• People seldom use FTP nowadays

• Replaced with two ways:
• Web-based file upload/download
• Browser shows a directory content if the
directory does not have a default html file
• SSH-based file transfer

26.51