Network Working Group J. Yeh, Ed.
Internet-Draft Abel, Ed.
Expires: September 5, 2007 TWNIC
March 4, 2007
Internationalized Email Headers
draft-ietf-eai-utf8headers-04.txt
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).
Abstract
Full internationalization of electronic mail requires not only the
capability to transmit non-ASCII content, to encode selected
information in specific header fields, and to use non-ASCII
characters in envelope addresses. It also requires being able to
express those addresses and information based on them in mail header
fields. This document specifies the use of Unicode encoded in UTF-8,
rather than ASCII, as the base form for Internet email header field
bodies. This form is permitted in transmission only if authorized by
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an SMTP extension, as specified in an associated specification.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Role of this specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Background and History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Pre-requirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Changes on Message Header Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5.1. UTF8 Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5.2. Syntax extensions to RFC 2822 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.3. Change on addr-spec syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.4. Trace field syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6. Additional issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6.1. Mailing list header fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6.2. MIME headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
8. IANA considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
9. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
10. Edit history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
10.1. draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-03 =>
draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-04 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
10.2. draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-02 =>
draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
10.3. draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-01 =>
draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
10.4. draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-00 =>
draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
10.5. draft-yeh-ima-utf8header-01 =>
draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
10.6. draft-yeh-ima-utf8header-00 =>
draft-yeh-ima-utf8header-01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
11. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
11.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
11.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 14
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1. Introduction
1.1. Role of this specification
Full internationalization of electronic mail requires several
capabilities:
o The capability to transmit non-ASCII content, provided for as part
of the basic MIME specification [RFC2045], [RFC2046].
o The capability to encode selected information in specific header
fields, provided for as another part of the MIME specification
[RFC2047].
o The capability to use international characters in envelope
addresses, discussed in [EAI-overview] and specified in
[EAI-SMTP-extension]. And, finally,
o The capability to express those addresses, and information related
to and based on them, in mail header fields, defined in this
document.
o The capability to use international characters in other headers,
but only as expressly permitted herein, or in future extensions.
This document specifies the use of Unicode encoded in UTF-8
[RFC3629], rather than ASCII, as the base form for Internet email
header fields. This form is permitted in transmission, if authorized
by the SMTP extension specified in [EAI-SMTP-extension] or by other
transport mechanisms capable of processing it.
2. Background and History
Mailbox names often represent the names of human users. Many of
these users throughout the world have names that are not normally
represented with just the ASCII repertoire of characters, and would
more or less like to use their real names in their mailbox names.
These users are also likely to use non-ASCII text in their common
names and subjects of email messages, both in what they send and what
they receive. This protocol specifies UTF-8 as the encoding to
represent email header field bodies.
The traditional format of email messages [RFC2822] allows only ASCII
characters in the header fields of messages. This prevents users
from having email addresses that contain non-ASCII characters. It
further forces non-ASCII text in common names, comments, and in free
text (such as in the Subject: field) to be in MIME format [RFC2047].
This specification describes a change to the email message format
that is related to the SMTP message transport change described in the
associated specifications [EAI-overview] and [EAI-SMTP-extension],
and that allows non-ASCII characters throughout email header fields.
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These changes affect SMTP clients, SMTP servers, mail user agents
(MUAs), list expanders and and gateways to other media.
As specified in [EAI-SMTP-extension], an SMTP protocol extension
"UTF8SMTP" is used to prevent the transmission of messages with UTF-8
header fields to systems that cannot handle such messages.
Use of this SMTP extension helps prevent against the introduction of
such messages into message stores that might misrepresent or mangle
such messages. It should be noted that using an ESMTP extension does
not prevent against transferring email messages with UTF-8 header
fields to other systems that use the email format for messages and
that may not be upgraded, such as the POP and IMAP protocols. Those
protocols also need to be changed in order to handle stored messages
that have UTF-8 header fields.
The objective for this protocol is to allow UTF-8 in email header
fields. Issues about how to handle messages that contain UTF-8
header fields but are proposed to be delivered to systems that have
not been upgraded to support this capability are discussed elsewhere,
particularly in [EAI-downgrading].
3. Terminology
In this document, header fields are "UTF-8 headers" if the bodies of
those headers contain UTF-8 characters.
Unless otherwise noted, all terms used here are defined in [RFC2821]
or [RFC2822] or in [EAI-overview].
The key words "MUST", "SHALL", "REQUIRED", "SHOULD", "RECOMMENDED",
and "MAY" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC
2119 [RFC2119].
This document is being discussed on the ima mailing list. See
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ima for information about
subscribing. The list's archive is at
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ima/index.html.
4. Pre-requirement
The use of UTF-8 header fields is dependent on the use of an SMTP
extension named "UTF8SMTP" or of similar capabilities in other
transports.
That protocol is defined in [EAI-SMTP-extension]. If that extension
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is not supported, UTF-8 header fields MUST NOT be transmitted by
SMTP.
Sending MUAs conforming to this specification MUST encode all header
fields in UTF-8. No other direct encodings (like Big-5) are allowed.
Although there is nothing wrong with the continued use of [RFC2047],
it is not recommended in this document.
5. Changes on Message Header Fields
SMTP client can send header fields in UTF-8 format, if the UTF8SMTP
extension advertised by SMTP server or as permitted by other
transport mechanisms.
This protocol does NOT change the definition of header field names.
That is, only the bodies of header fields are allowed to have UTF-8
characters; the rules in RFC 2822 for header names are not changed.
To be able to do so, the header definition in RFC 2822 must extended
to support new format. That following ABNF is defined to substitute
those definition in RFC 2822.
For those syntax rules not referred in this section remains as the
original definition in RFC 2822.
5.1. UTF8 Syntax
The use of UTF8 characters are defined as following.
UTF8-xtra-char = UTF8-2 / UTF8-3 / UTF8-4
UTF8-2 = %xC2-DF UTF8-tail
UTF8-3 = %xE0 %xA0-BF UTF8-tail /
%xE1-EC 2(UTF8-tail) /
%xED %x80-9F UTF8-tail /
%xEE-EF 2(UTF8-tail)
UTF8-4 = %xF0 %x90-BF 2(UTF8-tail) /
%xF1-F7 3(UTF8-tail)
UTF8-tail = %x80-BF
These are taken from FRC 3629, but kept in this document for reasons
of convenience.
[Note in draft: Whether normalizing is needed or not will be place in
here.]
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5.2. Syntax extensions to RFC 2822
The following rules are intended to extend the corresponding rules in
RFC 2822 to allow UTF8 characters.
ctext = NO-WS-CTL / ; all of <text> except
%d33-39 / ; SP, HTAB, "(", ")"
%d42-91 / ; and "\"
%d93-126 /
UTF8-xtra-char
utext = NO-WS-CTL / ; Non white space controls
%d33-126 / ; The rest of US-ASCII
UTF8-xtra-char
comment = "(" *([FWS] utf8-ccontent) [FWS] ")"
word = utf8-atom / utf8-quoted-string
This means that all the RFC 2822 constructs that build upon these
will permit UTF-8 characters, including comments and quoted strings.
Besides, in order to allow UTF8 characters in <addr-spec> we have to
change the syntax of <atext>. However, it will also lead <msg-id> to
allow UTF8 characters, which is not allowed due to the limitation
described in Section 5.4. So <utf8-atext> is added to meet this
requirement.
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utf8-text = %d1-9 / ; all UTF-8 characters except
%d11-12 / ; US-ASCII NUL, CR and LF
%d14-127 /
UTF8-xtra-char
utf8-quoted-pair = ("\" utf8-text) / obs-qp
utf8-qcontent = utf8-qtext / utf8-quoted-pair
utf8-quoted-string = [CFWS]
DQUOTE *([FWS] utf8-qcontent) [FWS] DQUOTE
[CFWS]
utf8-ccontent = ctext / utf8-quoted-pair / comment
utf8-qtext = NO-WS-CTL / ; all of <text> except
%d33 / ; The rest of the US-ASCII
%d35-91 / ; characters not including "\"
%d93-126 / ; or the quote character
UTF8-xtra-char
utf8-atext = ALPHA / DIGIT /
"!" / "#" / ; Any character except
"$" / "%" / ; controls, SP, and specials.
"&" / "'" / ; Used for atoms
"*" / "+" /
"-" / "/" /
"=" / "?" /
"^" / "_" /
"`" / "{" /
"|" / "}" /
"~" /
UTF8-xtra-char
utf8-atom = [CFWS] 1*utf8-atext [CFWS]
utf8-dot-atom = [CFWS] utf8-dot-atom-text [CFWS]
utf8-dot-atom-text = 1*utf8-atext *("." 1*utf8-atext)
[NOTE IN DRAFT: If any header needs to be restricted to disallow
this, please raise the issue on the mailing list.]
Note, however, this does not remove any constraint on the character
set of protocol elements; for instance, all the allowed values for
timezone in the Date: headers are still expressed in ASCII. And
also, none of this revised syntax affects what is allowed in a
<message-id>, which will still remain in pure ASCII.
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5.3. Change on addr-spec syntax
In this specification, internationalized email address will be
presented in UTF-8. Thus, all header fields involving <mailbox>es
may be different from traditional ones. There might be UTF8SMTP
unaware MTAs in the mail routing path. In that case, MTA may bounce
the message with reply code 550, or downgrade the non-ASCII contents
of all header bodies before continuing to send the message. The
downgrade process involve with a new ALT-ADDRESS parameter. When
downgrade occurs, the ALT-ADDRESS will be used for mail delivery
instead of the internationalized email address, the detail is
described in [EAI-downgrading].
mailbox = name-addr / addr-spec / utf8-addr-spec
angle-addr = [CFWS] "<" utf8-addr-spec SP <alt-address> SP ">" [CFWS]
utf8-addr-spec = utf8-local-part "@" utf8-domain
utf8-local-part= utf8-dot-atom / utf8-quoted-string / obs-local-part
utf8-domain = utf8-dot-atom / domain-literal / obs-domain
alt-address = [CFWS] "<" addr-spec ">" [CFWS]
Below list a few possible <mailbox> representation as example.
"DISPLAY_NAME" <ASCII@ASCII>
; traditional mailbox format
"DISPLAY_NAME" <non-ASCII@non-ASCII>
; UTF8SMTP but no ALT-ADDRESS parameter provided,
; message will bounce if UTF8SMTP extension is not supported
"DISPLAY_NAME" <non-ASCII@non-ASCII <ASCII@ASCII>>
; UTF8SMTP with ALT-ADDRESS parameter provided,
; ALT-ADDRESS can be used if downgrade is necessary
5.4. Trace field syntax
Internationalized domain names in Received fields must be transmitted
in punycode form when downgrading. "For" fields containing
internationalized addresses are allowed, since subsequent downgrading
would force , there should be needed for UTF-8 information in
Received fields and such information is allowed to preserve the
integrity of those fields. Using uFor to keep original UTF-8 email
address transmits when between both EAI-aware MTAs, And drop uFor
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when downgraded is needed. uFor specified in [EAI-SMTP-extension],
and downgraded procedure specified in [EAI-downgrading].
The "Return-Path" header provides the email returning address in the
mail delivery. Thus, it MUST able to carry UTF8 addresses (see the
revised syntax of <angle-addr> in Section 5.2 of this document).
This will not break the rule of trace fied integrity, because it is
added at the last MTA.
6. Additional issues
This section identifies issues that are not covered as part of this
set of specifications, but that will need to be considered as part of
UTF8SMTP deployment.
6.1. Mailing list header fields
All mailing list and mail redistribution related header are discussed
in [EAI-mailing-list].
6.2. MIME headers
The syntax of <value>, as defined in RFC 2045, is
value = token / quoted-string
To be able to use UTF-8 characters in MIME headers, <quoted-string>
syntax is extended as
qcontent = utf8-qtext / quoted-pair
In all those headers, such as Content-Type and Content-Dispoaition
[plus lots of others being defined in various other documents], which
make use of <value> within <parameter> as defined in [RFC2045] as
modified by [RFC2231], it will now be allowed to use <quoted-string>s
containing UTF-8 characters (see the revised syntax of <utf8-qtext>
in Section 5.2 of this document).
7. Security Considerations
If a user has a non-ASCII mailbox address and an ASCII mailbox
address, a digital certificate that identifies that user may have
both addresses in the identity. Having multiple email addresses as
identities in a single certificate is already supported in PKIX and
OpenPGP.
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Because UTF-8 often requires several octets to encode a single
character, internationalized local parts may cause mail addresses to
become longer. As specified in RFC 2822, each line of characters
MUST be no more 998 octets, excluding the CRLF.
In this specification, a user could provide an ASCII alternative
address for a non-ASCII address. However, it is possible these two
address go to different mailbox, or even different persons. This
might not be a protocol problem, but the user's personal choice or
administration policy or even be a deliberate attempt to deceive or
cause confusion.
8. IANA considerations
There is no IANA considerations in this document.
9. Acknowledgements
This document was created by incorporating a good deal of material
from an old Internet Draft by Paul Hoffman [Hoffman-utf8-headers].
While many of the concepts and details have changed, the
contributions from that draft are greatly appreciated.
Most of the content of this document is provided by John C Klensin.
Also some significant comments and suggestions were received from
Charles H. Lindsey, Kari Hurtta, Chris Newman, Yangwoo KO, Yoshiro
YONEYA, and other members of the JET team and were incorporated into
the document. The editor is much great thanks to their contribution
sincerely.
10. Edit history
This section is used for tracking the update of this document. Will
be removed after finalize.
10.1. draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-03 => draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-04
1. ABNF revise.
2. Modify uFor description in Section 5.4
10.2. draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-02 => draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-03
1. Editrial changes on terms and english.
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2. ABNF revise.
3. addr-spec change, put ALT-ADDRESS inside "<" and ">" quote with
"<" and ">".
4. Remove the "Header-Type" header.
5. Add uFor description in Section 5.4
6. Remove the content in IANA considerations since "Header-Type" is
removed.
10.3. draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-01 => draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-02
1. Editrial changes on terms and english.
2. Change the header name "UTF8SMTP" to "Header-Type", and ABNF
revise.
3. addr-spec change, put ALT-ADDRESS inside "<" and ">" quote with
"[" and "]".
4. IANA considerations section rewrite into registeration templates
specified in RFC 3864.
10.4. draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-00 => draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-01
1. ABNF revise.
2. Terminology sync with overview document.
3. addr-spec change, put ALT-ADDRESS inside "<" and ">" quote with
"{" and "}".
4. add IANA considerations to register the new 2822 header
"UTF8SMTP".
5. add Security considerations about relation of UTF8SMTP address to
ALT-ADDRESS.
10.5. draft-yeh-ima-utf8header-01 => draft-ietf-eai-utf8header-00
1. ABNF added.
2. Editrial changes.
3. Sent it as WG document.
10.6. draft-yeh-ima-utf8header-00 => draft-yeh-ima-utf8header-01
1. Section re-arranged.
2. Remove content are not below to this document.
11. References
11.1. Normative References
[ASCII] American National Standards Institute (formerly United
States of America Standards Institute), "USA Code for
Information Interchange", ANSI X3.4-1968, 1968.
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ANSI X3.4-1968 has been replaced by newer versions with
slight modifications, but the 1968 version remains
definitive for the Internet.
[EAI-SMTP-extension]
Yao, J., Ed. and Wei. Mao, "SMTP extension for
internationalized email address",
draft-ietf-eai-smtpext-02.txt (work in progress),
July 2006.
[EAI-mailing-list]
Gellens, Randall., "Mailing Lists and Internationalized
Email Addresses", draft-ietf-eai-mailinglist-01.txt (work
in progress), January 2007.
[EAI-overview]
Klensin, J. and Y. Ko, "Overview and Framework of
Internationalized Email Address Delivery",
draft-ietf-eai-framework-05.txt (work in progress),
Feburary 2007.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2231] Freed, N. and K. Moore, "MIME Parameter Value and Encoded
Word Extensions: Character Sets, Languages, and
Continuations", RFC 2231, November 1997.
[RFC2821] Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 2821,
April 2001.
[RFC2822] Resnick, P., "Internet Message Format", RFC 2822,
April 2001.
[RFC3629] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, November 2003.
11.2. Informative References
[EAI-downgrading]
YONEYA, Yoshiro., Ed. and Kazunori. Fujiwara, Ed.,
"Downgrading mechanism for Internationalized eMail Address
(IMA)", draft-ietf-eai-downgrade-01.txt (work in
progress), June 2006.
[]
Hoffman, P., "SMTP Service Extensions or Transmission of
Headers in UTF-8 Encoding",
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draft-hoffman-utf8headers-00.txt (work in progress),
December 2003.
[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.
[RFC2047] Moore, K., "MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
Part Three: Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text",
RFC 2047, November 1996.
[RFC3864] Klyne, G., Nottingham, M., and J. Mogul, "Registration
Procedures for Message Header Fields", BCP 90, RFC 3864,
September 2004.
[RFC4646] Phillips, A. and M. Davis, "Tags for Identifying
Languages", BCP 47, RFC 4646, September 2006.
Authors' Addresses
Jeff Yeh (editor)
TWNIC
4F-2, No. 9, Sec 2, Roosvelt Rd.
Taipei, 100
Taiwan
Phone: +886 2 23411313 ext 506
Email: jeff@twnic.net.tw
Abel Yang (editor)
TWNIC
4F-2, No. 9, Sec 2, Roosvelt Rd.
Taipei, 100
Taiwan
Phone: +886 2 23411313 ext 505
Email: abelyang@twnic.net.tw
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Full Copyright Statement
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This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
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This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
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