LOGO VINE SOFTWARE - TECHNICAL NOTES

ISP, EMAIL & WEB SITES

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Components
  3. Internet/ Connection
  4. Domain
  5. Outgoing Email
  6. Incoming Email
  7. Web Site

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Introduction

This document gives some information about how the various facilities offered by an ISP interact. In particular how this affects your email. Although most ISPs will offer a package including Internet connection, incoming & outgoing email and a web site you do not need to source all of these from the ISP. The intention of this document is to allow you to consider which options and suppliers are appropriate for your circumstances.

Components

Your Internet configuration consists of a number of components. Although they will probably be offered as a package they are all totally independent of each other and,  if it is advantageous, each could be supplied by a different organisation. Briefly they are:

Internet Connection

This is the ADSL or modem connection to your ISP. Once this is established your computer (or network of computers) is connected to the Internet and you can browse, receive and send email, etc.

Domain

This is your unique web site and email address, such as vine.co.uk.

Outgoing Email

To send email you must either configure your computer to send it directly to the recipient or to send it to an email relay which then sorts out how to get it to the eventual recipient

Incoming Email

Email is sent towards your computer using the SMTP protocol. You can set up your computer to receive the email directly using SMTP but if you do not know what that is then that is probably not a good idea! The more normal arrangement is for your email to be deposited in a POP box and then your computer picks up the email from there.

Web Site

This is a set of files on a computer running a web server which contains the pages which make up your web site

Internet Connection

This is what you get from your ISP (Internet Service Provider). There are no technical issues here, you just need to balance price, the type of service, any extras being offered, and the company's reputation.  About the only technical option is whether you need a fixed IP number; this might be useful for unusual email options or to get through firewalls but as a general rule if you do not know what it is you do not need it.

For most people ADSL is usually the best and cheapest option. ADSL is permanently connected to the Internet which raises issues about firewalls and general security which are outside the scope of this note.

Domain

When you get an Internet connection you nearly always get a name in that ISP's domain. So your email will be something like customer@isp.co.uk and your web site something like http://customer.isp.co.uk/ or http://isp.co.uk/customer/  This is fairly boring so most people opt for their own domain - mydonain.co.uk - giving any number of email addresses of the form sales@mydomain.co.uk & fred.bloggs@mydomain.co.uk and a web site of the form http://www.mydomain.co.uk

As well as being more distinct having your own domain means you are not tied to your current ISP. If you change your ISP your email address and web site will not change, thus saving you the expense of changing your literature and informing your contacts. Obtaining your own domain is  not difficult.

Domains are sold on a first-come-first-served basis; some are available to anybody (e.g. .co.uk & .com) whilst others have restrictions on who may take them (e.g. .ltd.uk).  Because it is fairly technical to set these up there is a three-way arrangement. You will be the "registrant" and will own the domain whilst you continue to pay the "registrar". However in practice, payment for the domain and the configuration of that domain will be done for you by an "agent" who will then charge you for this service. The agent  will be your ISP if you get your domain from them but there are a large number of companies from whom you can obtain your domain. These nearly all have clever web sites which enable people with limited or no technical knowledge to set up their domain to a greater or lesser extent.

The important thing to note is that the domain belongs to you and not the agent. Each registrar has different procedures but it should be fairly straightforward to transfer a domain from one agent to another.

When selecting your agent consider whether the domain can be configured for the options you require (see below) and what extras they throw in. Many also offer inexpensive web space and email options. It is also worth checking out the procedures now for transferring the domain to another agent. Some agents make it difficult or expensive to transfer even if it is cheap to buy the domain in the first place.

Outgoing Email

To send an email, you compose the message, add your email address, the recipient's email address and send it off into the Internet. Then it can get complicated but that is not your concern! Most people will send their email to an email relay which works out how to deliver the message. Technically this could be any computer that is prepared to accept and send on your message and that is how a vast amount of spam is transmitted. Because of that well-configured email relays will only accept email from computers which they know and trust. Computers which are less discerning are known as an open relay and most computers will not accept email from them.

When you establish your Internet  connection with your ISP you need to do some authentication and this is regarded as sufficiently robust for them to trust your computer and to act as an email relay for you. So the normal arrangement is to use your ISP for your outgoing email. For most email programs this is configured as the "Outgoing (SMTP) relay" or words to that effect.

About the only time it is not appropriate to use your ISP is if they refuse to send email from a domain other than own. In other words email from customer@isp.co.uk is accepted but email from sales@mydomain.co.uk is not. If that is the case your only options are to change your ISP or to try to find another computer which is prepared to authenticate you and then relay your email. These are hard to find (do not risk an open relay - your email  WILL be bounced by many recipients!) and they may demand a fixed IP number.

Incoming Email

Incoming email is totally independent of outgoing email! 

Unfortunately it probably helps to understand some of the technical details about how email is delivered.

  1. The system looks at the domain (to the right of the @ sign) and looks up its MX DNS record. This gives the computer which will accept email for that domain.
  2. The email is delivered to that computer  using  SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol).  It is possible that  this is used to deliver the message directly to your computer but if you can set things up safely so SMTP is used to deliver the message to your computer then you are probably not reading this!
  3. The more usual arrangement is to deliver it as far as a computer to which you have access. The message is then stored in a POP (Post Office Protocol) box.
  4. You then download the messages from your POP box onto your computer. You can use POP in which case the messages are, usually, deleted from the POP box when they are downloaded, or IMAP where, usually, the messages stay in the POP box in the remote computer until the message is deleted. For simple configurations POP is usually better because most POP boxes have fairly limited capacity so you want to get the messages out of them as quickly as possible.

The question though is where the POP box is to be. The choices are:

  1. Your ISP
  2. Your domain agent's computers
  3. The computer holding your web site.
(although often two or even all three of these will be the same)

Usually this will be the domain agent's computer as that is the default configuration for the domain.

However sometimes the email system offered by a domain agent is very limitted in capacity or options whereas the email system offered by your ISP (or perhaps web site) is much better. If they are prepared to accept and store email for your domain then all that needs to happen is that the MX records for your domain are set with the address of the relevant computer and you configure your email program to read from that computer.

But what if although the email options from your ISP are exactly what you want but they will only accept email for customer@isp.co.uk or your domain agent does not offer POP boxes? In many circumstances it is possible to forward the email. The MX records stay the same so email to sales@mydomain.co.uk is sent to the domain agent's computer with its inferior email system. but instead of the message being stored in their POP box you forward it to the ISP's email address. So it arrives at the agent addressed to  sales@mydomain.co.uk  but leaves addressed to customer@isp.co.uk This usually has no effect on the email program on your computer and it will deliver it without any problems.

Web Site

Again, this is independent from the other option but usually you will use the space supplied by your ISP or the domain agent. In some cases you will use your web designer's site. Provided that you have control of your domain you just need to point the www record at the IP or name of their server.

Often the web designers will offer to take over all of your web site, email & DNS. Provided that you ensure that you own the domain, and ideally can have access to it, this is often an excellent arrangement as they will offer a more personal service than the large ISP or automated domain agent.

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