System and method for provisioning an email account using mail exchange records
AssigneeTeamon Systems, Inc.
InventorsDarren L. Gardner, Suryanarayana Murthy Gorty, Steven J. McCarthy
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Abstract
A system provisions an electronic mail (email) account of a user for allowing access to an electronic mailbox from a remote device to retrieve email. A communications module receives email address parameters of the user and transmits a domain name system (DNS) query to the Internet for returning mail exchange (MX) records corresponding to the email address parameters of the user. A configuration module processes any returned MX records as a starting point for determining configuration parameters for accessing the email account of the user to retrieve user email.
Claims17
A system for provisioning an electronic mail (email) account of a user for allowing access to an electronic mailbox from a remote device to retrieve email, the system comprising:
- a mobile office platform operative as an agent between the user and the electronic mailbox of the user hosted by an email service provider, and comprising
- a database containing relevant configuration conventions including email expressions formed by symbols symbolically representing conventions used by email service providers for a set of configuration parameters;
- and
- a processor and a memory and defining a communications module and a configuration module,
- the communications module receives email address parameters of the user and transmits a domain name system (DNS) query to the Internet for returning, at a same time, mail exchange (MX) and address (A) records corresponding to the email address parameters entered by the user,
- the configuration module, processes returned MX records to determine whether the email address parameters entered by the user are valid for accessing the email account of the user to retrieve email from the electronic mailbox of the user, and when the provisioning from processing returned MX records fails, processing returned A records to determine the email account parameters, and when the provisioning from processing returned A records fails, requesting corrected email address parameters from the user and generating sets of possible configuration parameters, by using heuristics of likelihood the configuration parameters would be valid for accessing the electronic mailbox, for provisioning and accessing the email account.
A method of provisioning an electronic mail (email) account of a user for allowing access to an electronic mailbox from a remote device to retrieve email, which comprises:
- receiving email address parameters entered by the user;
- transmitting a domain name system (DNS) query to the Internet and returning, at a same time, mail exchange (MX) and address (A) records corresponding to the email address parameters entered by the user;
- retrieving from a database relevant configuration conventions including email expressions formed by symbols symbolically representing the conventions used by email service providers for a set of configuration parameters;
- and
- using returned MX records to determine whether email address parameters entered by the user are valid for accessing the email account of the user to retrieve email from the electronic mailbox of the user, and when the provisioning from processing returned MX records fails, processing returned A records to determine the email account parameters, and when the provisioning from processing returned A records fails, requesting corrected email address parameters from the user and generating sets of possible configuration parameters, by using heuristics of likelihood the configuration parameters would be valid for accessing an electronic mailbox, for provisioning and accessing the email account.
A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable medium having a computer-readable program code embedded therein, said computer-readable program code adapted to be executed to implement provisioning an electronic mail (email) account of a user for allowing access to an electronic mailbox from a remote device to retrieve email, comprising:
- providing a system comprising a communications module and a configuration module;
- receiving email address parameters entered by the user within the communications module;
- transmitting a domain name system (DNS) query to the Internet and returning, at a same time, mail exchange (MX) and address (A) records corresponding to the email address parameters entered by the user;
- retrieving from a database relevant configuration conventions including email expressions formed by symbols symbolically representing the conventions used by email service providers for a set of configuration parameters;
- and
- at the configuration module using returned MX records to determine whether email address parameters entered by the user are valid for accessing the email account of the user to retrieve email from the electronic mailbox of the user, and when the provisioning fails, processing returned A records to determine the email account parameters, and when the provisioning from processing returned A records fails, requesting corrected email address parameters from the user and generating sets of possible configuration parameters for provisioning and accessing the email account of the user by using heuristics of likelihood the configuration parameters would be valid for accessing the electronic mailbox.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.