Rebex Secure Mail
SMTP, IMAP, EWS, POP3, S/MIME .NET library
More .NET components

Standards and platform support

On this page:

100% managed .NET code with no external dependencies #

  • Rebex Secure Mail is written in 100% managed C# code.
  • No external dependencies. It only needs .NET Framework.
  • No open source code used.
  • Fully CLS-compliant.
  • Supports any .NET language (C#, VB.NET, C++/CLI, etc.)
  • Platform-independent code. Same assemblies for both 32-bit and 64-bit applications.
  • Complete source code available.

.NET Framework on Windows #

Rebex Secure Mail supports the following platforms:

  • .NET Framework 4.7
  • .NET Framework 4.6.x
  • .NET Framework 4.5.x
  • .NET Framework 4.0
  • .NET Framework 3.5
  • .NET Framework 3.0
  • .NET Framework 2.0
  • Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions (same DLLs)

Legacy binaries for .NET Framework 1.0 and 1.1 are available for registered customers.
For details, see legacy platform support section.

Supported IDE versions:

  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2012
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2013
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2015
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2017

Supported Windows versions:

  • Windows 10
  • Windows 8
  • Windows 8.1
  • Windows 2012 Server
  • Windows 2012 Server R2
  • Windows 2008 Server
  • Windows 2008 Server R2
  • Windows 7
  • Windows Vista

Rebex Secure Mail is known to work on Windows XP SP3 and Windows Server 2003 R2. However, these platforms already reached end-of-life, which means we cannot guarantee any kind of support for Rebex Secure Mail on these operating systems.

Mono on Linux #

Rebex Secure Mail supports Mono version 3.x, 4.x on Linux and Apple macOS (OS X).

.NET Compact Framework on handhelds and mobiles #

Rebex Secure Mail for .NET Compact Framework supports several Microsoft handheld and mobile platforms.

Supported frameworks:

  • .NET Compact Framework 3.5
  • .NET Compact Framework 3.9

Legacy binaries for .NET Compact Framework 2.0 are available for registered customers upon request.
For details, see legacy platform support section.

Supported mobile operating systems:

  • Windows CE
  • Pocket PC
  • Windows Mobile
  • Windows Embedded Compact 2013

Supported IDE versions:

  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2012
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2013

Xamarin.iOS #

  • Xamarin Studio/Visual Studio with Xamarin.iOS 8.6 or later
  • iOS 5.1.1 or later

Xamarin.Android #

  • Xamarin Studio/Visual Studio with Xamarin.Android 4 or later
  • Android 2.3.3 or later (Android API version 10 or later)

Xamarin.Mac #

Experimental version of Rebex Secure Mail for Xamarin.Mac is included in the installation package.

Supported projects:

  • Xamarin.Mac Mobile
  • Xamarin.Mac .NET 4.5 Framework

Requires Xamarin Studio with Xamarin.Mac 2.x or later and OS X 10.7 or later.

Universal Windows Platform #

Experimental version of Rebex Secure Mail for Universal Windows Platform is included in the installation package.

Supported platforms:

  • Windows 10 Store Apps
  • Windows 10 Mobile
  • Windows 10 IoT

.NET Core #

Experimental version of Rebex Secure Mail for .NET Core is included in the installation package.

Supported platforms:

  • .NET Core
  • .NET Standard 1.5 (on .NET 4.6.2 and .NET 4.7)

ASP.NET #

Rebex Secure Mail can be used within an ASP.NET web page. However, you have to keep in mind specific features of the ASP.NET platform (it is stateless, multithreaded, it may be limited by MediumTrust security level...).

Further info on using Rebex components in web environment can be found in How to use Rebex SFTP or FTP/SSL in ASP.NET knowledge base article. The article discusses SFTP and FTP/SSL, but implications for SMTP, IMAP and POP3 components are the same.

Internet RFC specifications #

Rebex Secure Mail aims to implement the following Internet standards:

SMTP RFCs:

POP3 RFCs:

IMAP RFCs:

MIME, S/MIME and CMS RFCs:

TLS RFCs:

Other RFCs:

While we tried hard to be compliant with relevant RFCs, current practice in Internet mail often deviates from these standards. In fact, sometimes being compliant can severely hinder interoperability with existing software. Interoperability was therefore the highest priority.

For example, being compliant with RFC 2231 would lead to incompatibility with Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, and possibly a number of other mail agents as well. So even though Rebex Secure Mail is able to parse RFC2231-compliant messages, it does not produce them.)

TLS/SSL versions #

Supported TLS/SSL protocol versions:

  • SSL 3.0
  • TLS 1.0
  • TLS 1.1
  • TLS 1.2

MIME, S/MIME, Outlook MSG and other email formats #

Supported e-mail message formats:

  • RFC 822/2822/5322 - Internet Message Format
  • MIME - Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
  • Outlook MSG - native format used by Microsoft Outlook/li>
  • MS-TNEF/winmail.dat - Microsoft's proprietary email extension format

Supported attachment subformats:

  • UUEncode
  • Embedded OLE objects within TNEF/winmail.dat e-mail messages
  • Application-specific OLE attachments in MSG e-mail messages
  • Base64, Quoted-Printable, 7bit, 8bit and binary entities in MIME e-mail messages

FIPS 140-2 mode #

Rebex Secure Mail can operate in a FIPS 140-2 compliant mode. When enabled, only FIPS-approved cryptographic modules from MS CryptoAPI are used. FIPS mode is activated automatically when Windows is running in FIPS mode. To switch on the FIPS mode manually, set
Rebex.Security.Cryptography.CryptoHelper.UseFipsAlgorithmsOnly to true.

Legacy platform support #

Legacy version of Rebex Secure Mail for .NET Framework 1.0 and 1.1 is still available for registered customers. However, it's no longer maintained or supported and all customers are advised to upgrade to a more recent platform as soon as possible.

Legacy version of Rebex Secure Mail for .NET Compact Framework 2.0 is still available for registered customers upon request.

For details, see How long will Rebex support old versions of .NET Framework knowledge base article.

Proxy servers #

  • SOCKS4
  • SOCKS4a (Socks4 with domain name resolving)
  • SOCKS5
  • HTTP proxies with CONNECT method support

Learn how to use proxy servers in Rebex Secure Mail.

Authentication methods #

SMTP authentication methods

  • Auto - automatically choose the best method available.
  • Plain - RFC 2595 plaintext authentication.
  • NTLM - Integrated Microsoft Windows Authentication.
  • GSSAPI - currently supported mechanisms are Kerberos, NTLM and SPNEGO/Negotiate.
  • Digest-MD5 - RFC 2831 DIGEST-MD5 authentication.
  • CRAM-MD5 - RFC 2195 CRAM-MD5 authentication.
  • Login - 'LOGIN' plaintext authentication.

POP3 authentication methods

  • Auto - automatically choose the best method available.
  • Plain - RFC 2595 plaintext authentication.
  • NTLM - Integrated Microsoft Windows Authentication.
  • GSSAPI - GSSAPI authentication (currently supported mechanisms are Kerberos, NTLM and SPNEGO/Negotiate).
  • Digest-MD5 - RFC 2831 DIGEST-MD5 authentication.
  • CRAM-MD5 - RFC 2195 CRAM-MD5 authentication.
  • Login - 'LOGIN' plaintext authentication.
  • ClearText - Legacy plaintext USER/PASS login.
  • APOP - POP3-specific challenge-response authentication.

IMAP authentication methods

  • Auto - automatically choose the best method available.
  • Plain - RFC 2595 plaintext authentication.
  • NTLM - Integrated Microsoft Windows Authentication.
  • GSSAPI - currently supported mechanisms are Kerberos, NTLM and SPNEGO/Negotiate.
  • Digest-MD5 - RFC 2831 DIGEST-MD5 authentication.
  • CRAM-MD5 - RFC 2195 CRAM-MD5 authentication.
  • Login - 'LOGIN' plaintext authentication.
  • ClearText - Legacy plaintext LOGIN command.
  • External - RFC 4422 - if the client already established its credentials via external means
See Authentication section to see how to select a specific authentication method.
Note: GSSAPI and NTLM authentication methods are only supported on Windows.

Exchange Web Services (EWS) #

The following servers currently support Exchange Web Services (EWS):

  • Microsoft Exchange 2007 and all service packs
  • Microsoft Exchange 2010 and all service packs
  • Microsoft Exchange 2013 and all service packs
  • Microsoft Exchange 2016 and all service packs
  • Microsoft Office 365 online servers
Note: Hotmail, Live.com and Outlook.com servers do not support EWS.

SMTP, IMAP, POP3 Extensions #

SMTP extensions

  • Pipelining - Sending SMTP commands in groups
  • Chunking - Enhanced method of sending message data
  • Binary MIME
  • 8bit MIME
  • ETRN - Enhanced turn command support
  • Enhanced status codes
  • DSN - Delivery status notifications
  • Message size declaration
  • STARTTLS - Explicit TLS/SSL support

IMAP extensions

  • UIDPLUS - StoreMessage method will return unique ID of the message at the server
  • LITERAL+ - The LITERAL+ extension permits IMAP clients to send commands containing 8-bit or unicode arguments without asking the server's permission to send each argument
  • IDLE/DONE command support
  • COMPRESS=DEFLATE - Deflate compression extension support
  • XLIST - Extended list - created by Google for GMail IMAP - used to retrieve folder purpose info
  • STARTTLS - Explicit TLS/SSL support
  • PREAUTH - Password-less authentication

POP3 extensions

  • APOP - an enhanced authorization method
  • STLS - Explicit TLS/SSL support

Cryptographic algorithms #

  • Diffie-Hellman key exchange
  • RSA
  • DSA (with support of non-standard key sizes of up to 4096 bits)
  • DES (legacy)
  • Tripple DES
  • ArcTwo (compatible with RC2, legacy)
  • ArcFour (compatible with RC4)
  • AES
  • MD5 (legacy)
  • SHA-1
  • SHA-2 (SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512)

Learn more about TLS/SSL security standards details.
Learn more about S/MIME security standards details.

Scripting platforms #

Rebex Secure Mail is designed primary for use in .NET framework applications. However, it can be used in several other scripting and hosting environments:

  • Microsoft SQL Server SSIS packages
  • Microsoft SQL Server SQL CLR stored procedures
  • Microsoft PowerShell scripts

See how to use Rebex Secure Mail in SSIS, SQL CLR and PowerShell environments.

Other technologies #

  • IPv4 and IPv6 support
  • Kerberos v5, NTLM and Negotiate (see more about GSSAPI authentication) on Windows