Network Working Group T. Showalter
Request for Comments: 5230
Category: Standards Track N. Freed, Ed.
Sun Microsystems
January 2008
Sieve Email Filtering: Vacation Extension
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
This document describes an extension to the Sieve email filtering
language for an autoresponder similar to that of the Unix "vacation"
command for replying to messages. Various safety features are
included to prevent problems such as message loops.
Showalter & Freed Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 5230 Sieve: Vacation Extension January 2008
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Conventions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Capability Identifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Vacation Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4.1. Days Parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4.2. Previous Response Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.3. Subject and From Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.4. MIME Parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.5. Address Parameter and Limiting Replies to Personal
Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.6. Restricting Replies to Automated Processes and Mailing
Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.7. Interaction with Other Sieve Actions . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.8. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. Response Message Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.1. SMTP MAIL FROM Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.2. Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.3. Subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.4. From . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.5. To . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.6. Auto-Submitted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.7. Message Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.8. In-Reply-To and References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6. Relationship to Recommendations for Automatic Responses to
Electronic Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7. Internationalization Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Appendix A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Showalter & Freed Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 5230 Sieve: Vacation Extension January 2008
1. Introduction
This document defines an extension to the Sieve language defined in
[RFC5228] for notification that messages to a particular recipient
will not be answered immediately.
2. Conventions Used in This Document
Conventions for notations are as in [RFC5228] section 1.1.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "REQUIRED",
and "MAY" in this document are to be interpreted as defined in
[RFC2119].
3. Capability Identifier
Sieve implementations that implement vacation have an identifier of
"vacation" for use with the capability mechanism.
4. Vacation Action
Usage: vacation [":days" number] [":subject" string]
[":from" string] [":addresses" string-list]
[":mime"] [":handle" string] <reason: string>
The "vacation" action implements a vacation autoresponder similar to
the vacation command available under many versions of Unix. Its
datatracker.ietf.org