Network Working Group T. Hansen, Ed.
Internet-Draft AT&T Laboratories
Obsoletes: 5337 (if approved) C. Newman
Updates: 3461, 3462, 3464, 3798 Oracle
(if approved) A. Melnikov
Intended status: Standards Track Isode Ltd
Expires: May 3, 2012 October 31, 2011
Internationalized Delivery Status and Disposition Notifications
draft-ietf-eai-rfc5337bis-dsn-05
Abstract
Delivery status notifications (DSNs) are critical to the correct
operation of an email system. However, the existing Draft Standards
(RFC 3461, RFC 3462, RFC 3464) are presently limited to US-ASCII text
in the machine-readable portions of the protocol. This specification
adds a new address type for international email addresses so an
original recipient address with non-US-ASCII characters can be
correctly preserved even after downgrading. This also provides
updated content return media types for delivery status notifications
and message disposition notifications to support use of the new
address type.
This document extends RFC 3461, RFC 3462, RFC 3464, and RFC 3798. It
replaces the experimental RFC 5337.
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
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on May 3, 2012.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
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document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Conventions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. UTF-8 Address Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. UTF-8 Delivery Status Notifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1. The message/global-delivery-status Media Type . . . . . . 6
4.2. The message/global Media Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.3. The message/global-headers Media Type . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.4. Using These Media Types with multipart/report . . . . . . 9
4.5. Additional Requirements on SMTP Servers . . . . . . . . . 9
5. UTF-8 Message Disposition Notifications . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.1. UTF-8 Mail Address Type Registration . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.2. Update to 'smtp' Diagnostic Type Registration . . . . . . 12
6.3. message/global-headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.4. message/global-delivery-status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.5. message/global-disposition-notification . . . . . . . . . 15
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Appendix A. Changes Since ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
A.1. Changes Since -00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
A.2. Changes Since RFC 5337 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Appendix B. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
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1. Introduction
When an email message is transmitted using the UTF8SMTP
[I-D.ietf-eai-rfc5336bis] extension and Internationalized Email
Headers [I-D.ietf-eai-rfc5335bis], it is sometimes necessary to
return that message or generate a Message Disposition Notification
(MDN) [RFC3798]. As a message sent to multiple recipients can
generate a status and disposition notification for each recipient, it
is helpful if a client can correlate these notifications based on the
recipient address it provided; thus, preservation of the original
recipient is important. This specification describes how to preserve
the original recipient and updates the MDN and DSN formats to support
the new address types.
NOTE: While this specification updates the experimental versions of
this protocol by removing certain constructs (e.g., the "<addr
<addr>>" address syntax is no longer permitted), the name of the
Address Type "UTF-8" and the media type names message/global,
message/global-delivery-status and message/global-headers have not
been changed.
This specification is a revision of and replacement for [RFC5337].
Section 6 of [I-D.ietf-eai-frmwrk-4952bis] describes the change in
approach between this specification and the previous version.
2. Conventions Used in This Document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
The formal syntax uses the Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF)
[RFC5234] notation including the core rules defined in Appendix B of
RFC 5234 [RFC5234] and the UTF-8 syntax rules in Section 4 of
[RFC3629].
3. UTF-8 Address Type
An Extensible Message Format for Delivery Status Notifications
[RFC3464] defines the concept of an address type. The address format
introduced in Internationalized Email Headers
[I-D.ietf-eai-rfc5335bis] is a new address type. The syntax for the
new address type in the context of status notifications is specified
at the end of this section.
An SMTP [RFC5321] server that advertises both the UTF8SMTP extension
[I-D.ietf-eai-rfc5336bis] and the DSN extension [RFC3461] MUST accept
a UTF-8 address type in the ORCPT parameter including 8-bit UTF-8
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characters. This address type also includes a 7-bit encoding
suitable for use in a message/delivery-status body part or an ORCPT
parameter sent to an SMTP server that does not advertise UTF8SMTP.
This address type has 3 forms: utf-8-addr-xtext, utf-8-addr-unitext,
and utf-8-address. Only the first form is 7-bit safe (only uses
7-bit characters).
The utf-8-address form is only suitable for use in newly defined
protocols capable of native representation of 8-bit characters. That
is, the utf-8-address form MUST NOT be used in the ORCPT parameter
when the SMTP server doesn't advertise support for UTF8SMTP, or the
SMTP server supports UTF8SMTP, but the address contains US-ASCII
characters not permitted in the ORCPT parameter (e.g., the ORCPT
parameter forbids unencoded SP and the = character), or in a 7-bit
transport environment including a message/delivery-status Original-
Recipient or Final-Recipient field. In the first and third case, the
utf-8-addr-xtext form (see below) MUST be used instead; in the second
case, either the utf-8-addr-unitext or the utf-8-addr-xtext form MUST
be used. The utf-8-address form MAY be used in the ORCPT parameter
when the SMTP server also advertises support for UTF8SMTP and the
address doesn't contain any US-ASCII characters not permitted in the
ORCPT parameter. It SHOULD be used in a message/
global-delivery-status Original-Recipient or Final-Recipient DSN
field, or in an Original-Recipient header field [RFC3798] if the
message is a UTF8SMTP message.
In addition, the utf-8-addr-unitext form can be used anywhere where
the utf-8-address form is allowed.
When used in the ORCPT parameter, the UTF-8 address type requires
that US-ASCII CTLs, SP, \, +, and = be encoded using 'unitext'
encoding (see below). This is described by the utf-8-addr-xtext and
utf-8-addr-unitext forms in the ABNF below. The 'unitext' encoding
uses "\x{HEXPOINT}" syntax (EmbeddedUnicodeChar in the ABNF below)
for encoding any Unicode character outside of US-ASCII range, as well
as for encoding CTLs, SP, \, +, and =. HEXPOINT is 2 to 6
hexadecimal digits. This encoding avoids the need to use the xtext
encoding described in [RFC3461], as any US-ASCII characters that
needs to be escaped using xtext encoding never appear in any unitext
encoded string. When sending data to a UTF8SMTP capable server,
native UTF-8 characters SHOULD be used instead of the
EmbeddedUnicodeChar syntax described in details below. When sending
data to an SMTP server that does not advertise UTF8SMTP, then the
EmbeddedUnicodeChar syntax MUST be used instead of UTF-8.
When the ORCPT parameter is placed in a message/
global-delivery-status Original-Recipient field, the 'utf-8-addr-
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xtext' form of the UTF-8 address type SHOULD be converted to the
'utf-8-address' form (see the ABNF below) by removing the 'unitext'
encoding. However, if an address is labeled with the UTF-8 address
type but does not conform to utf-8 syntax, then it MUST be copied
into the message/global-delivery-status field without alteration.
The ability to encode characters with the EmbeddedUnicodeChar
encodings should be viewed as a transitional mechanism and avoided
when possible. It is hoped that as systems lacking support for
UTF8SMTP become less common over time, these encodings can eventually
be phased out.
In the ABNF below, all productions not defined in this document are
defined in Appendix B of [RFC5234], in Section 4 of [RFC3629], or in
[RFC3464].
utf-8-type-addr = "utf-8;" utf-8-enc-addr
utf-8-address = Mailbox
; Mailbox as defined in [I-D.ietf-eai-rfc5336bis].
utf-8-enc-addr = utf-8-addr-xtext /
utf-8-addr-unitext /
utf-8-address
utf-8-addr-xtext = 1*(QCHAR / EmbeddedUnicodeChar)
; 7bit form of utf-8-addr-unitext.
; Safe for use in the ORCPT [RFC3461]
; parameter even when UTF8SMTP SMTP
; extension is not advertised.
utf-8-addr-unitext = 1*(QUCHAR / EmbeddedUnicodeChar)
; MUST follow utf-8-address ABNF when
; dequoted.
; Safe for using in the ORCPT [RFC3461]
; parameter when UTF8SMTP SMTP extension
; is also advertised.
QCHAR = %x21-2a / %x2c-3c / %x3e-5b / %x5d-7e
; US-ASCII printable characters except
; CTLs, SP, '\', '+', '='.
QUCHAR = QCHAR / UTF8-2 / UTF8-3 / UTF8-4
; US-ASCII printable characters except
; CTLs, SP, '\', '+' and '=', plus
; other Unicode characters encoded in UTF-8
EmbeddedUnicodeChar = %x5C.78 "{" HEXPOINT "}"
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; starts with "\x"
HEXPOINT = ( ( "0"/"1" ) %x31-39 ) / "10" / "20" /
"2B" / "3D" / "7F" / ; all xtext-specials
"5C" / (HEXDIG8 HEXDIG) / ; 2 digit forms
( NZHEXDIG 2(HEXDIG) ) / ; 3 digit forms
( NZDHEXDIG 3(HEXDIG) ) / ; 4 digit forms excluding
( "D" %x30-37 2(HEXDIG) ) / ; ... surrogate
( NZHEXDIG 4(HEXDIG) ) / ; 5 digit forms
( "10" 4*HEXDIG ) ; 6 digit forms
; represents either "\" or a Unicode code point outside
; the US-ASCII repertoire
HEXDIG8 = %x38-39 / "A" / "B" / "C" / "D" / "E" / "F"
; HEXDIG excluding 0-7
NZHEXDIG = %x31-39 / "A" / "B" / "C" / "D" / "E" / "F"
; HEXDIG excluding "0"
NZDHEXDIG = %x31-39 / "A" / "B" / "C" / "E" / "F"
; HEXDIG excluding "0" and "D"
4. UTF-8 Delivery Status Notifications
A traditional delivery status notification [RFC3464] comes in a
three-part multipart/report [RFC3462] container, where the first part
is human-readable text describing the error, the second part is a
7-bit-only message/delivery-status, and the optional third part is
used for content (message/rfc822) or header (text/rfc822-headers)
return. As the present standard DSN format does not permit the
return of undeliverable UTF8SMTP messages, three new media types are
needed. ([RFC5337] introduced experimental versions of these media
types.)
4.1. The message/global-delivery-status Media Type
The first type, message/global-delivery-status, has the syntax of
message/delivery-status with three modifications. First, the charset
for message/global-delivery-status is UTF-8, and thus any field MAY
contain UTF-8 characters when appropriate (see the ABNF below). In
particular, the Diagnostic-Code field MAY contain UTF-8 as described
in UTF8SMTP [I-D.ietf-eai-rfc5336bis]; the Diagnostic-Code field
SHOULD be in i-default language [RFC2277]. Second, systems
generating a message/global-delivery-status body part SHOULD use the
utf-8-address form of the UTF-8 address type for all addresses
containing characters outside the US-ASCII repertoire. These systems
SHOULD up-convert the utf-8-addr-xtext or the utf-8-addr-unitext form
of a UTF-8 address type in the ORCPT parameter to the utf-8-address
form of a UTF-8 address type in the Original-Recipient field. Third,
an optional field called Localized-Diagnostic is added. Each
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instance includes a language tag [RFC5646] and contains text in the
specified language. This is equivalent to the text part of the
Diagnostic-Code field. All instances of Localized-Diagnostic MUST
use different language tags. The ABNF for message/
global-delivery-status is specified below.
In the ABNF below, all productions not defined in this document are
defined in Appendix B of [RFC5234], in Section 4 of [RFC3629], or in
[RFC3464]. Note that <text-fixed> is the same as <text> from
[RFC5322], but without <obs-text>. If or when RFC 5322 is updated to
disallow <obs-text>, this should become just <text>. Also, if or
when RFC 5322 is updated to disallow control characters in <text>,
this should become a reference to that update instead.
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utf-8-delivery-status-content = per-message-fields
1*( CRLF utf-8-per-recipient-fields )
; "per-message-fields" remains unchanged from the definition
; in RFC 3464, except for the "extension-field"
; which is updated below.
utf-8-per-recipient-fields =
[ original-recipient-field CRLF ]
final-recipient-field CRLF
action-field CRLF
status-field CRLF
[ remote-mta-field CRLF ]
[ diagnostic-code-field CRLF
*(localized-diagnostic-text-field CRLF) ]
[ last-attempt-date-field CRLF ]
[ final-log-id-field CRLF ]
[ will-retry-until-field CRLF ]
*( extension-field CRLF )
; All fields except for "original-recipient-field",
; "final-recipient-field", "diagnostic-code-field"
; and "extension-field" remain unchanged from
; the definition in RFC 3464.
generic-address =/ utf-8-enc-addr
; Only allowed with the "utf-8" address-type.
; Updates Section 3.2.3 of RFC3798
;
; This indirectly updates "original-recipient-field"
; and "final-recipient-field"
diagnostic-code-field =
"Diagnostic-Code" ":" diagnostic-type ";" *text-fixed
localized-diagnostic-text-field =
"Localized-Diagnostic" ":" Language-Tag ";" *utf8-text
; "Language-Tag" is a language tag as defined in [RFC5646].
extension-field =/ extension-field-name ":" *utf8-text
; Updates Section 7 of RFC3798
text-fixed = %d1-9 / ; Any US-ASCII character except for NUL,
%d11 / ; CR and LF
%d12 / ; See note above about <text-fixed>
%d14-127
utf8-text = text-fixed / UTF8-non-ascii
UTF8-non-ascii = UTF8-2 / UTF8-3 / UTF8-4
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4.2. The message/global Media Type
The second type, used for returning the content, is message/global
which is similar to message/rfc822, except it contains a message with
UTF-8 headers. This media type is described in
[I-D.ietf-eai-rfc5335bis].
4.3. The message/global-headers Media Type
The third type, used for returning the headers, is message/
global-headers and contains only the UTF-8 header fields of a message
(all lines prior to the first blank line in a UTF8SMTP message).
Unlike message/global, this body part provides no difficulties for
the present infrastructure.
4.4. Using These Media Types with multipart/report
Note that as far as a multipart/report [RFC3462] container is
concerned, message/global-delivery-status, message/global, and
message/global-headers MUST be treated as equivalent to message/
delivery-status, message/rfc822, and text/rfc822-headers. That is,
implementations processing multipart/report MUST expect any
combinations of the 6 media types mentioned above inside a multipart/
report media type.
All three new types will typically use the "8bit" Content-Transfer-
Encoding. (In the event all content is 7-bit, the equivalent
traditional types for delivery status notifications MAY be used. For
example, if information in message/global-delivery-status part can be
represented without any loss of information as message/
delivery-status, then the message/delivery-status body part may be
used.) Note that [I-D.ietf-eai-rfc5335bis] relaxed a restriction
from MIME [RFC2046] regarding the use of Content-Transfer-Encoding in
new "message" subtypes. This specification explicitly allows the use
of Content-Transfer-Encoding in message/global-headers and message/
global-delivery-status. This is not believed to be problematic as
these new media types are intended primarily for use by newer systems
with full support for 8-bit MIME and UTF-8 headers.
4.5. Additional Requirements on SMTP Servers
If an SMTP server that advertises both UTF8SMTP and DSN needs to
return an undeliverable UTF8SMTP message, then it has two choices for
encapsulating the UTF8SMTP message when generating the corresponding
multipart/report:
If the return path SMTP server does not support UTF8SMTP, then the
undeliverable body part and headers MUST be encoded using a 7-bit
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Content-Transfer-Encoding such as "base64" or "quoted-printable"
[RFC2045], as detailed in Section 4.
Otherwise, "8bit" Content-Transfer-Encoding can be used.
5. UTF-8 Message Disposition Notifications
Message Disposition Notifications [RFC3798] have a similar design and
structure to DSNs. As a result, they use the same basic return
format. When generating an MDN for a UTF-8 header message, the third
part of the multipart/report contains the returned content (message/
global) or header (message/global-headers), same as for DSNs. The
second part of the multipart/report uses a new media type, message/
global-disposition-notification, which has the syntax of message/
disposition-notification with two modifications. First, the charset
for message/global-disposition-notification is UTF-8, and thus any
field MAY contain UTF-8 characters when appropriate (see the ABNF
below). (In particular, the failure-field, the error-field, and the
warning-field MAY contain UTF-8. These fields SHOULD be in i-default
language [RFC2277].) Second, systems generating a message/
global-disposition-notification body part (typically a mail user
agent) SHOULD use the UTF-8 address type for all addresses containing
characters outside the US-ASCII repertoire.
The MDN specification also defines the Original-Recipient header
field, which is added with a copy of the contents of ORCPT at
delivery time. When generating an Original-Recipient header field, a
delivery agent writing a UTF-8 header message in native format SHOULD
convert the utf-8-addr-xtext or the utf-8-addr-unitext form of a
UTF-8 address type in the ORCPT parameter to the corresponding utf-8-
address form.
The MDN specification also defines the Disposition-Notification-To
header field, which is an address header field and thus follows the
same 8-bit rules as other address header fields such as "From" and
"To" when used in a UTF-8 header message.
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; ABNF for "original-recipient-header", "original-recipient-field",
; and "final-recipient-field" from RFC 3798 is implicitly updated
; as they use the updated "generic-address" as defined in
; Section 4 of this document.
failure-field = "Failure" ":" *utf8-text
; "utf8-text" is defined in Section 4 of this document.
error-field = "Error" ":" *utf8-text
; "utf8-text" is defined in Section 4 of this document.
warning-field = "Warning" ":" *utf8-text
; "utf8-text" is defined in Section 4 of this document.
6. IANA Considerations
This specification does not create any new IANA registries. However,
the following items are registered as a result of this document.
6.1. UTF-8 Mail Address Type Registration
The mail address type registry was created by [RFC3464]. The
registration template response follows:
(a) The proposed address-type name.
UTF-8
(b) The syntax for mailbox addresses of this type, specified using
BNF, regular expressions, ASN.1, or other non-ambiguous language.
See Section 3.
(c) If addresses of this type are not composed entirely of graphic
characters from the US-ASCII repertoire, a specification for how
they are to be encoded as graphic US-ASCII characters in a DSN
Original-Recipient or Final-Recipient DSN field.
This address type has 3 forms (as defined in Section 3): utf-8-
addr-xtext, utf-8-addr-unitext, and utf-8-address. Only the
first form is 7-bit safe.
The utf-8-address form MUST NOT be used:
1. in the ORCPT parameter when the SMTP server doesn't advertise
support for UTF8SMTP;
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2. or the SMTP server supports UTF8SMTP, but the address contains
US-ASCII characters not permitted in the ORCPT parameter (e.g.,
the ORCPT parameter forbids SP and the = characters);
3. or in a 7-bit transport environment including a message/
delivery-status Original-Recipient or Final-Recipient field.
The utf-8-addr-xtext form MUST be used instead in the first and the
third case; the utf-8-addr-unitext form MUST be used in the second
case.
The utf-8-address form MAY be used in the ORCPT parameter when the
SMTP server also advertises support for UTF8SMTP and the address
doesn't contain any US-ASCII characters not permitted in the ORCPT
parameter; in a message/global-delivery-status Original-Recipient or
Final-Recipient DSN field; or in an Original-Recipient header field
[RFC3798] if the message is a UTF8SMTP message.
In addition, the utf-8-addr-unitext form can be used anywhere where
the utf-8-address form is allowed.
6.2. Update to 'smtp' Diagnostic Type Registration
The mail diagnostic type registry was created by [RFC3464] and
updated by [RFC5337] and this specification. The registration for
the 'smtp' diagnostic type should be updated to reference RFC XXXX in
addition to [RFC3464] and [RFC5337].
When the 'smtp' diagnostic type is used in the context of a message/
delivery-status body part, it remains as presently defined. When the
'smtp' diagnostic type is used in the context of a message/
global-delivery-status body part, the codes remain the same, but the
text portion MAY contain UTF-8 characters.
6.3. message/global-headers
Type name: message
Subtype name: global-headers
Required parameters: none
Optional parameters: none
Encoding considerations: This media type contains Internationalized
Email Headers [I-D.ietf-eai-rfc5335bis] with no message body.
Whenever possible, the 8-bit content transfer encoding SHOULD be
used. When this media type passes through a 7-bit-only SMTP
infrastructure it MAY be encoded with the base64 or quoted-
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printable content transfer encoding.
Security considerations: See Section 7.
Interoperability considerations: It is important that this media
type is not converted to a charset other than UTF-8. As a result,
implementations MUST NOT include a charset parameter with this
media type. Although it might be possible to downconvert this
media type to the text/rfc822-header media type, such conversion
is discouraged as it loses information.
Published specification: RFC XXXX
Applications that use this media type: UTF8SMTP servers and email
clients that support multipart/report generation or parsing.
Additional information:
Magic number(s): none
File extension(s): In the event this is saved to a file, the
extension ".u8hdr" is suggested.
Macintosh file type code(s): The 'TEXT' type code is suggested as
files of this type are typically used for diagnostic purposes and
suitable for analysis in a UTF-8 aware text editor. A uniform
type identifier (UTI) of "public.utf8-email-message-header" is
suggested. This type conforms to "public.utf8-plain-text" and
"public.plain-text".
Person & email address to contact for further information: See the
Authors' Addresses section of this document.
Intended usage: COMMON
Restrictions on usage: This media type contains textual data in the
UTF-8 charset. It typically contains octets with the 8th bit set.
As a result, a transfer encoding is required when a 7-bit
transport is used.
Author: See the Authors' Addresses section of this document.
Change controller: IETF Standards Process
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6.4. message/global-delivery-status
Type name: message
Subtype name: global-delivery-status
Required parameters: none
Optional parameters: none
Encoding considerations: This media type contains delivery status
notification attributes in the UTF-8 charset. The 8-bit content
transfer encoding MUST be used with this content-type, unless it
is sent over a 7-bit transport environment in which case quoted-
printable or base64 may be necessary.
Security considerations: See Section 7
Interoperability considerations: This media type provides
functionality similar to the message/delivery-status content-type
for email message return information. Clients of the previous
format will need to be upgraded to interpret the new format;
however, the new media type makes it simple to identify the
difference.
Published specification: RFC XXXX
Applications that use this media type: SMTP servers and email
clients that support delivery status notification generation or
parsing.
Additional information:
Magic number(s): none
File extension(s): The extension ".u8dsn" is suggested.
Macintosh file type code(s): A uniform type identifier (UTI) of
"public.utf8-email-message-delivery-status" is suggested. This
type conforms to "public.utf8-plain-text".
Person & email address to contact for further information: See the
Authors' Addresses section of this document.
Intended usage: COMMON
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Restrictions on usage: This is expected to be the second part of a
multipart/report.
Author: See the Authors' Addresses section of this document.
Change controller: IETF Standards Process
6.5. message/global-disposition-notification
Type name: message
Subtype name: global-disposition-notification
Required parameters: none
Optional parameters: none
Encoding considerations: This media type contains disposition
notification attributes in the UTF-8 charset. The 8-bit content
transfer encoding MUST be used with this content-type, unless it
is sent over a 7-bit transport environment in which case quoted-
printable or base64 may be necessary.
Security considerations: See Section 7.
Interoperability considerations: This media type provides
functionality similar to the message/disposition-notification
content-type for email message disposition information. Clients
of the previous format will need to be upgraded to interpret the
new format; however, the new media type makes it simple to
identify the difference.
Published specification: RFC XXXX
Applications that use this media type: Email clients or servers that
support message disposition notification generation or parsing.
Additional information:
Magic number(s): none
File extension(s): The extension ".u8mdn" is suggested.
Macintosh file type code(s): A uniform type identifier (UTI) of
"public.utf8-email-message-disposition-notification" is suggested.
This type conforms to "public.utf8-plain-text".
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Person & email address to contact for further information: See the
Authors' Addresses section of this document.
Intended usage: COMMON
Restrictions on usage: This is expected to be the second part of a
multipart/report.
Author: See the Authors' Addresses section of this document.
Change controller: IETF Standards Process
7. Security Considerations
Automated use of report types without authentication presents several
security issues. Forging negative reports presents the opportunity
for denial-of-service attacks when the reports are used for automated
maintenance of directories or mailing lists. Forging positive
reports may cause the sender to incorrectly believe a message was
delivered when it was not.
Malicious users can generate report structures designed to trigger
coding flaws in report parsers. Report parsers need to use secure
coding techniques to avoid the risk of buffer overflow or denial-of-
service attacks against parser coding mistakes. Code reviews of such
parsers are also recommended.
Malicious users of the email system regularly send messages with
forged envelope return paths, and these messages trigger delivery
status reports that result in a large amount of unwanted traffic on
the Internet. Many users choose to ignore delivery status
notifications because they are usually the result of "blowback" from
forged messages and thus never notice when messages they sent go
undelivered. As a result, support for correlation of delivery status
and message disposition notification messages with sent-messages has
become a critical feature of mail clients and possibly mail stores if
the email infrastructure is to remain reliable. In the short term,
simply correlating message-IDs may be sufficient to distinguish true
status notifications from those resulting from forged originator
addresses. But in the longer term, including cryptographic signature
material that can securely associate the status notification with the
original message is advisable.
As this specification permits UTF-8 in additional fields, the
security considerations of UTF-8 [RFC3629] apply.
8. References
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8.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in
RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels",
BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2277] Alvestrand, H., "IETF Policy on
Character Sets and Languages", BCP 18,
RFC 2277, January 1998.
[RFC3461] Moore, K., "Simple Mail Transfer
Protocol (SMTP) Service Extension for
Delivery Status Notifications (DSNs)",
RFC 3461, January 2003.
[RFC3462] Vaudreuil, G., "The Multipart/Report
Content Type for the Reporting of Mail
System Administrative Messages",
RFC 3462, January 2003.
[RFC3464] Moore, K. and G. Vaudreuil, "An
Extensible Message Format for Delivery
Status Notifications", RFC 3464,
January 2003.
[RFC3629] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation
format of ISO 10646", STD 63,
RFC 3629, November 2003.
[RFC3798] Hansen, T. and G. Vaudreuil, "Message
Disposition Notification", RFC 3798,
May 2004.
[RFC5646] Phillips, A. and M. Davis, "Tags for
Identifying Languages", BCP 47,
RFC 5646, September 2009.
[RFC5321] Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer
Protocol", RFC 5321, October 2008.
[RFC5322] Resnick, P., Ed., "Internet Message
Format", RFC 5322, October 2008.
[RFC5234] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented
BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF",
STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008.
[I-D.ietf-eai-rfc5335bis] Yang, A., Steele, S., and N. Freed,
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Internet-Draft Internationalized DSN and MDNs October 2011
"Internationalized Email Headers",
draft-ietf-eai-rfc5335bis-13 (work in
progress), October 2011.
[I-D.ietf-eai-rfc5336bis] Yao, J. and W. MAO, "SMTP Extension
for Internationalized Email",
draft-ietf-eai-rfc5336bis-15 (work in
progress), October 2011.
[I-D.ietf-eai-frmwrk-4952bis] Klensin, J. and Y. Ko, "Overview and
Framework for Internationalized
Email",
draft-ietf-eai-frmwrk-4952bis-12 (work
in progress), October 2011.
8.2. Informative References
[RFC2045] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein,
"Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
(MIME) Part One: Format of Internet
Message Bodies", RFC 2045,
November 1996.
[RFC2046] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein,
"Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
(MIME) Part Two: Media Types",
RFC 2046, November 1996.
[RFC5337] Newman, C. and A. Melnikov,
"Internationalized Delivery Status and
Disposition Notifications", RFC 5337,
September 2008.
Appendix A. Changes Since ...
A.1. Changes Since -00
NOTE TO RFC EDITOR: Remove this section for publication.
Incorporated changes from draft-ietf-eai-dsnbis-01.
Fixed description of utf-8-addr-xtext and utf-8-addr-unitext.
Other minor corrections.
Incorporated comments by Apps Area reviewers.
References to Downgrade and uMailbox removed/fixed.
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A.2. Changes Since RFC 5337
Made changes to move from Experimental to Standards Track. The most
significant was the removal of an embedded alternative ASCII address
within a utf-8-address, and reflections of the ABNF changes in
[I-D.ietf-eai-rfc5336bis].
ABNF changes and errata suggested by Alfred Hoenes.
Minor changes to MIME type references.
Other minor corrections.
Appendix B. Acknowledgements
Many thanks for input provided by Pete Resnick, James Galvin, Ned
Freed, John Klensin, Harald Alvestrand, Frank Ellermann, SM, Alfred
Hoenes, Kazunori Fujiwara, and members of the EAI WG to help solidify
this proposal.
Authors' Addresses
Tony Hansen (editor)
AT&T Laboratories
200 Laurel Ave.
Middletown, NJ 07748
USA
EMail: tony+eaidsn@maillennium.att.com
Chris Newman
Oracle
800 Royal Oaks
Monrovia, CA 91016-6347
US
EMail: chris.newman@oracle.com
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Alexey Melnikov
Isode Ltd
5 Castle Business Village
36 Station Road
Hampton, Middlesex TW12 2BX
UK
EMail: Alexey.Melnikov@isode.com
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