Please Whitelist This Site?
I know everyone hates ads. But please understand that I am providing premium content for free that takes hundreds of hours of time to research and write. I don't want to go to a pay-only model like some sites, but when more and more people block ads, I end up working for free. And I have a family to support, just like you. :)
If you like The TCP/IP Guide, please consider the download version. It's priced very economically and you can read all of it in a convenient format without ads.
If you want to use this site for free, I'd be grateful if you could add the site to the whitelist for Adblock. To do so, just open the Adblock menu and select "Disable on tcpipguide.com". Or go to the Tools menu and select "Adblock Plus Preferences...". Then click "Add Filter..." at the bottom, and add this string: "@@||tcpipguide.com^$document". Then just click OK.
Thanks for your understanding!
Sincerely, Charles Kozierok
Author and Publisher, The TCP/IP Guide
|
NOTE: Using software to mass-download the site degrades the server and is prohibited. If you want to read The TCP/IP Guide offline, please consider licensing it. Thank you.
|
|
|
|
|
The TCP/IP Guide
9 TCP/IP Application Layer Protocols, Services and Applications (OSI Layers 5, 6 and 7)
9 TCP/IP Key Applications and Application Protocols
9 TCP/IP File and Message Transfer Applications and Protocols (FTP, TFTP, Electronic Mail, USENET, HTTP/WWW, Gopher)
9 TCP/IP Electronic Mail System: Concepts and Protocols (RFC 822, MIME, SMTP, POP3, IMAP)
9 TCP/IP Electronic Mail Access and Retrieval Protocols and Methods
9 TCP/IP Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP/IMAP4)
|
IMAP Overview, History, Versions and Standards
(Page 3 of 3)
IMAP History and Standards
IMAP has had a rather interesting
history. I mean interesting in the sense that the normal
orderly development process that is used for most TCP/IP protocols broke
down. The result wasn't quite as bad as what
occurred with SNMP, but is still unusual.
The first version of IMAP formally
documented as an Internet standard was IMAP version 2 (IMAP2) in RFC
1064, published July 1988. This was updated in RFC 1176, August 1990,
retaining the same version number. However, it seems that some of the
people involved with IMAP were not pleased with RFC 1176, so they created
a new document defining version 3 of IMAP (IMAP3): RFC 1203, published
in February 1991. This is described by its authors as a counter
proposal.
For whatever reason, however, IMAP3
was never accepted by the marketplace. Instead, people kept using IMAP2
for a while. An extension to the protocol was later created, called
IMAP2bis, which added support for MIME
to IMAP. This was an important development due to the usefulness of
MIME, and many implementations of IMAP2bis were created. Despite this,
for some reason IMAP2bis was never published as an RFC. This may have
been due to the problems associated with the publishing of IMAP3.
Note: bis is a Latin word meaning again. It is sometimes used to differentiate changed technical documents from their previous versions when no official new version number is allocated. |
In December 1994, IMAP version 4
(IMAP4) was published in two RFCs: RFC 1730 describing the main protocol,
and RFC 1731 describing authentication mechanisms for IMAP4. IMAP4 is
the current version of IMAP and the one widely used today. It continues
to be refined; the latest specific version is actually called version
4rev1 (IMAP4rev1), defined in RFC 2060 and then most recently
by RFC 3501. Most people still just call this IMAP4 and
that's what I will do in the rest of this section.
If you find The TCP/IP Guide useful, please consider making a small Paypal donation to help the site, using one of the buttons below. You can also donate a custom amount using the far right button (not less than $1 please, or PayPal gets most/all of your money!) In lieu of a larger donation, you may wish to consider purchasing a download license of The TCP/IP Guide. Thanks for your support! |
|
|
Home -
Table Of Contents - Contact Us
The TCP/IP Guide (http://www.TCPIPGuide.com)
Version 3.0 - Version Date: September 20, 2005
© Copyright 2001-2005 Charles M. Kozierok. All Rights Reserved.
Not responsible for any loss resulting from the use of this site.
|