Internet Draft E. Allman draft-ietf-msgtrk-trkstat-01.txt Sendmail, Inc. Valid for six months March 20, 2001 Updates: RFC 1893 The Message/Tracking-Status MIME Extension <draft-ietf-msgtrk-trkstat-01.txt> Status of This Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also dis- tribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. 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." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at: http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at: http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html This document is a submission by the MSGTRK Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Comments should be submitted to the msgtrk@imc.org mailing list. An archive of the mailing list may be found at http://www.ietf.org/archive/msgtrk Distribution of this memo is unlimited. 1. Abstract Message Tracking is expected to be used to determine the sta- tus of undelivered e-mail upon request. Tracking is used in con- junction with Delivery Status Notifications [RFC-DSN-SMTP] and Mes- sage Disposition Notifications [RFC-MDN]; generally, a message tracking request will be issued only when a DSN or MDN has not been received within a reasonable timeout period. This memo defines a MIME [RFC-MIME] content-type for message tracking status in the same spirit as RFC 1894, ``An Extensible Message Format for Delivery Status Notifications'' [RFC-DSN-STAT]. Internet Draft Message/Tracking-Status March 20, 2001 It is to be issued upon a request as described in ``Message Track- ing Query Protocol'' [DRAFT-MTRK-MTQP]. This memo defines only the format of the status information. An extension to SMTP [RFC-ESMTP] to label messages for further tracking and request tracking status is defined in a separate memo [DRAFT-MTRK-SMTPEXT]. 2. Other Documents and Conformance The model used for Message Tracking is described in [DRAFT- MTRK-MODEL]. Message tracking is intended for use as a "last resort" mecha- nism. Normally, Delivery Status Notifications (DSNs) [RFC-DSN- SMTP] and Message Disposition Notifications (MDNs) [RFC-MDN] would provide the primary delivery status. Only if no response from either of these mechanisms would Message Tracking be used. This document is based on [RFC-DSN-STAT]. Sections 1.3 (Ter- minology), 2.1.1 (General conventions for DSN fields), 2.1.2 ("*-type" subfields), and 2.1.3 (Lexical tokens imported from RFC 822) of [RFC-DSN-STAT] are included into this document by refer- ence. Other sections are further incorporated as described herein. Syntax notation in this document conforms to [RFC-ABNF]. The following lexical tokens, defined in [RFC-MSGFMT], are used in the ABNF grammar for MTSNs: atom, CHAR, comment, CR, CRLF, DIGIT, LF, linear-white-space, SPACE, text. The date-time lexical token is defined in [RFC-HOSTREQ]. 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 RFC 2119 [RFC-KEYWORDS]. 3. Format of a Message Tracking Status Notification A Message Tracking Status Notification (MTSN) is intended to be returned as the body of a Message Tracking request [DRAFT-MTRK- MTQP]. The actual body MUST be a multipart/related [RFC-RELATED] with type of "tracking-status"; each subpart MUST be type "mes- sage/tracking-status" as described herein. 3.1. The message/tracking-status content-type The message/tracking-status content-type is defined as fol- lows: MIME type name: message MIME subtype name: tracking-status Optional parameters: none Encoding considerations: "7bit" encoding is sufficient and MUST be used to maintain readability when viewed by non-MIME mail readers. Security considerations: discussed in section 4 of this memo. Allman [Page 2]
Internet Draft Message/Tracking-Status March 20, 2001 The body of a message/tracking-status is modeled after [RFC-DSN-STAT]. That body consists of one or more "fields" for- matted to according to the ABNF of RFC 822 headers "fields" (see [RFC-MSGFMT]). The per-message fields appear first, followed by a blank line. Following the per-message fields are one or more groups of per-recipient fields. Each group of per-recipient fields is preceded by a blank line. Formally, the syntax of the message/tracking-status content is as follows: tracking-status-content = per-message-fields 1*( CRLF per-recipient-fields ) The per-message fields are described in section 3.2. The per- recipient fields are described in section 3.3. 3.1.1. General conventions for MTSN fields Section 2.1.1 (General conventions for DSN fields) of [RFC-DSN-STAT] is included herein by reference. Notably, the definition of xtext is identical to that of that document. 3.1.2. *-type subfields Section 2.1.2 (*-type subfields) of [RFC-DSN-STAT] is included herein by reference. Notably, the definitions of address-type, diagnostic-type, and MTA-name type are identi- cal to that of RFC 1894. 3.2. Per-Message MTSN Fields Some fields of an MTSN apply to all of the addresses in a single envelope. These fields may appear at most once in any MTSN. These fields are used to correlate the MTSN with the original message transaction and to provide additional informa- tion which may be useful to gateways. per-message-fields = original-envelope-id-field CRLF reporting-mta-field CRLF arrival-date CRLF *( extension-field CRLF ) 3.2.1. The Original-Envelope-Id field The optional Original-Envelope-Id field is defined as in section 2.2.1 of [RFC-DSN-STAT]. This field is REQUIRED. 3.2.2. The Reporting-MTA field The Reporting-MTA field is defined as in section 2.2.2 of [RFC-DSN-STAT]. This field is REQUIRED. Allman [Page 3]
Internet Draft Message/Tracking-Status March 20, 2001 3.2.3. The Arrival-Date field The Arrival-Date field is defined as in section 2.2.5 of [RFC-DSN-STAT]. This field is REQUIRED. 3.3. Per-Recipient MTSN fields An MTSN contains information about attempts to deliver a message to one or more recipients. The delivery information for any particular recipient is contained in a group of contiguous per-recipient fields. Each group of per-recipient fields is preceded by a blank line. The syntax for the group of per-recipient fields is as fol- lows: per-recipient-fields = original-recipient-field CRLF final-recipient-field CRLF action-field CRLF status-field CRLF [ remote-mta-field CRLF ] [ last-attempt-date-field CRLF ] [ will-retry-until-field CRLF ] *( extension-field CRLF ) 3.3.1. Original-Recipient field The optional Original-Recipient field is defined as in section 2.3.1 of [RFC-DSN-STAT]. This field is REQUIRED. 3.3.2. Final-Recipient field The required Final-Recipient field is defined as in sec- tion 2.3.2 of [RFC-DSN-STAT]. This field is REQUIRED. 3.3.3. Action field The required Action field indicates the action performed by the Reporting-MTA as a result of its attempt to deliver the message to this recipient address. This field MUST be present for each recipient named in the MTSN. The syntax is as defined in section 2.3.3 of RFC 1894. This field is REQUIRED. Valid actions are: failed The message could not be delivered. If DSNs have been enabled, a "failed" DSN should already have been returned. delayed The message is currently waiting in the MTA queue for future delivery. Essentially, this action means "the message is located, and it is Allman [Page 4]
Internet Draft Message/Tracking-Status March 20, 2001 here." delivered The message has been successfully delivered to the final recipient. This includes "delivery" to a mailing list exploder. It does not indi- cate that the message has been read. No further information is available; in particular, the tracking agent SHOULD NOT attempt further "down- stream" tracking requests. expanded The message has been successfully delivered to the recipient address as specified by the sender, and forwarded by the Reporting-MTA beyond that destination to multiple additional recipient addresses. However, these additional addresses are not trackable, and the tracking agent SHOULD NOT attempt further "downstream" tracking requests. relayed The message has been delivered into an environ- ment that does not support message tracking. No further information is available; in particular, the tracking agent SHOULD NOT attempt further "downstream" tracking requests. transferred The message has been transferred to another MTRK-compliant MTA. The tracking agent SHOULD attempt further "downstream" tracking requests. opaque The message may or may not have been seen by this system. No further information is avail- able or forthcoming. 3.3.4. Status field The Status field is defined as in RFC 1894 section 2.3.4. A new code is added to RFC 1893 [RFC-EMSSC], "Enhanced Mail System Status Codes", X.1.9 Message relayed to non-compliant mailer" The mailbox address specified was valid, but the mes- sage has been relayed to a system that does not speak this protocol; no further information can be pro- vided. A 2.1.9 Status field MUST be used exclusively with a "relayed" Action field. This field is REQUIRED. 3.3.5. Remote-MTA field The Remote-MTA field is defined as in section Reference 2.3.5 of [RFC-DSN-STAT]. This field MUST NOT be included if no delivery attempts have been made or if the Action field has value "opaque". If delivery to some agent other than an MTA (for example, a Local Delivery Agent) then this field MAY be included, giving the name of the host on which that agent Allman [Page 5]
Internet Draft Message/Tracking-Status March 20, 2001 was contacted. 3.3.6. Last-Attempt-Date field The Last-Attempt-Date field is defined as in section Reference 2.3.7 of [RFC-DSN-STAT]. This field is REQUIRED if any delivery attempt has been made and the Action field does not have value "opaque", in which case it will specify when it last attempted to deliver this message to another MTA or other Delivery Agent. This field MUST NOT be included if no delivery attempts have been made. 3.3.7. Will-Retry-Until field The Will-Retry-Until field is defined as in section Ref- erence 2.3.8 of [RFC-DSN-STAT]. If the message is not in the local queue or the Action field has the value ``opaque'' the Will-Retry-Until field MUST NOT be included; otherwise, this field is REQUIRED. 3.4. Extension fields Future extension fields may be defined as defined in sec- tion 2.4 of [RFC-DSN-STAT]. 3.5. Interaction Between MTAs and LDAs A message that has been delivered to an LDA that under- stands message tracking (in particular, an LDA speaking LMTP [RFC-LMTP] that supports the MTRK extension) SHOULD pass the tracking request to the LDA. In this case, the Action field for the MTA->LDA exchange will look the same as a transfer to a com- pliant MTA; that is, a "transferred" tracking status will be issued. 4. Security Issues 4.1. Forgery Malicious servers may attempt to subvert message tracking and return false information. This could result in misdirection or misinterpretation of results. 4.2. Confidentiality Another dimension of security is confidentiality. There may be cases in which a message recipient is autoforwarding mes- sages but does not wish to divulge the address to which the mes- sages are autoforwarded. The desire for such confidentiality will probably be heightened as "wireless mailboxes", such as pagers, become more widely used as autoforward addresses. MTA authors are encouraged to provide a mechanism which enables the end user to preserve the confidentiality of a for- warding address. Depending on the degree of confidentiality Allman [Page 6]
Internet Draft Message/Tracking-Status March 20, 2001 required, and the nature of the environment to which a message were being forwarded, this might be accomplished by one or more of: (a) respond with a "relayed" tracking status when a message is forwarded to a confidential forwarding address, and dis- abling further message tracking requests. (b) declaring the message to be delivered, issuing a "deliv- ered" tracking status, re-sending the message to the confi- dential forwarding address, and disabling further message tracking requests. The tracking algorithms MUST NOT allow tracking through list expansions. When a message is delivered to a list, a tracking request MUST respond with an "expanded" tracking status and MUST NOT display the contents of the list. 5. References [DRAFT-MTRK-MODEL] T. Hansen, ``Message Tracking Model and Requirements.'' draft-ietf-msgtrk-model-03.txt. November 2000. [DRAFT-MTRK-MTQP] T. Hansen, ``Message Tracking Query Protocol.'' draft-ietf- msgtrk-mtqp-01.txt. November 2000. [DRAFT-MTRK-SMTPEXT] E. Allman, ``SMTP Service Extension for Message Tracking.'' draft-ietf-msgtrk-smtpext-00.txt. December 2000. [RFC-ABNF] Crocker, D., Editor, and P. Overell, ``Augmented BNF for Syn- tax Specifications: ABNF'', RFC 2234, November 1997. [RFC-DSN-REPT] G. Vaudreuil, ``The Multipart/Report Content Type for the Reporting of Mail System Administrative Messages.'' RFC 1892. January 1996. [RFC-DSN-SMTP] K. Moore, ``SMTP Service Extension for Delivery Status Notifi- cations.'' RFC 1891. January 1996. [RFC-DSN-STAT] K. Moore and G. Vaudreuil, ``An Extensible Message Format for Delivery Status Notifications.'' RFC 1894. January 1996. [RFC-EMSSC] G. Vaudreuil, ``Enhanced Mail System Status Codes.'' RFC 1893. January 1996. [RFC-ESMTP] Rose, M., Stefferud, E., Crocker, D., Klensin, J. and N. Freed, ``SMTP Service Extensions.'' STD 10, RFC 1869. Allman [Page 7]
Internet Draft Message/Tracking-Status March 20, 2001 November 1995. [RFC-HOSTREQ] R. Braden (ed.), ``Requirements for Internet Hosts -- Applica- tion and Support.'' STD 3, RFC 1123. October 1989. [RFC-KEYWORDS] S. Bradner, ``Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Require- ment Levels.'' RFC 2119. March 1997. [RFC-LMTP] J. Myers, ``Local Mail Transfer Protocol.'' RFC 2033. Octo- ber 1996. [RFC-MDN] R. Fajman, ``An Extensible Message Format for Message Disposi- tion Notifications.'' RFC 2298. March 1998. [RFC-MIME] N. Freed and N. Borenstein, ``Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message Bod- ies.'' RFC 2045. November 1996. [RFC-MSGFMT] D. Crocker, ``Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text Messages.'' RFC 822. August 1982. [RFC-RELATED] E. Levinson, ``The MIME Multipart/Related Content-type.'' RFC 2387. August 1998. 6. Author's Address Eric Allman Sendmail, Inc. 6603 Shellmound Emeryville, CA 94608 U.S.A. E-Mail: eric@Sendmail.COM Phone: +1 510 594 5501 Fax: +1 510 594 5411 Allman [Page 8]
