IMAP UNAUTHENTICATE for Connection Reuse
draft-ietf-extra-imap-unauth-01

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Network Working Group                                          C. Newman
Internet-Draft                                                    Oracle
Updates: 3501 (if approved)                                 June 7, 2018
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: December 9, 2018

                IMAP UNAUTHENTICATE for Connection Reuse
                    draft-ietf-extra-imap-unauth-01

Abstract

   This specification extends the Internet Message Access Protocol
   (IMAP) to allow an administrative client to reuse the same IMAP
   connection on behalf of multiple IMAP user identities.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on December 9, 2018.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2018 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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   described in the Simplified BSD License.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Conventions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  UNAUTHENTICATE Command  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Interactions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.1.  Stateful Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.2.  Client Certificates, SASL EXTERNAL and imaps  . . . . . .   5
   5.  Revised State Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   6.  Formal Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   8.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   9.  Privacy Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   10. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     10.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     10.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Appendix A.  Design Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   Appendix B.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10

1.  Introduction

   Modern IMAP [RFC3501] server deployments often have peer systems with
   administrative privilege that perform actions on behalf of IMAP end-
   users.  For example, a voice mail gateway can use IMAP to store a
   user's voicemail and mark that voicemail as \Seen when the user
   listens to it via the phone interface.  These systems can issue the
   IMAP AUTHENTICATE command with administrative credentials to act on
   behalf of other users.  However, with the IMAP base specification,
   these specialized IMAP clients must close the connection and create a
   new connection for each user.  For efficiency reasons, it is
   desirable for these clients to reuse the same connection,
   particularly if SSL has been negotiated.  This specification proposes
   the UNAUTHENTICATE command to achieve this goal.

   The IMAP state machine described in section 3 of RFC 3501 does not
   have a transition from authenticated or selected state to not
   authenticated state.  The UNAUTHENTICATE command adds a transition
   from authenticated or selected state to not authenticated state.

2.  Conventions Used in This Document

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
   14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

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