The Java Apache Mail Enterprise Server (a.k.a. Apache James) is a 100% pure Java SMTP and POP3 Mail server and NNTP News server designed to be a complete and portable enterprise mail engine solution. James is based on currently available open protocols.

The James server also serves as a mail application platform. The James project hosts the Apache Mailet API, and the James server is a Mailet container. This feature makes it easy to design, write, and deploy custom applications for mail processing. This modularity and ease of customization is one of James' strengths, and can allow administrators to produce powerful applications surprisingly easily.

James is built on top of trunk version of the Avalon Application Framework. This framework encourages a set of good development practices such as Component Oriented Programming and Inversion of Control. The standard distribution of James includes Phoenix Avalon Framework container. This stable and robust container provides a strong foundation for the James server.

This documentation is intended to be an introduction to the concepts behind the James implementation, as well as a guide to installing, configuring, (and for developers) building the James server.