Network Working Group R. Sparks
Internet-Draft Tekelec
Intended status: Informational Dec 9, 2011
Expires: June 11, 2012
IETF Email List Archiving and Search Tool Requirements
draft-sparks-genarea-mailarch-01
Abstract
The IETF makes heavy use of email lists to conduct its work.
Participants frequently need to search and browse the archives of
these lists, and have asked for improved search capabilities. The
current archive mechanism could also be made more efficient. This
memo captures the requirements for improved email list archiving and
searching systems.
Status of this Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on June 11, 2012.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. List Search and Archive Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Search and Browsing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. IMAP access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.3. Archiving Active Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.4. Importing Messages from Other Archives . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.5. Exporting messages from the Archives . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.6. Redundancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.7. Archive Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.8. Transition Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Future Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
7. Changelog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
7.1. 00 to 01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
8. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
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1. Introduction
The IETF makes heavy use of email lists to conduct its work.
Participants frequently need to search the archives of these lists,
and have asked for improved search capabilities. The current archive
mechanism could also be made more efficient. This memo captures the
requirements for improved email list archiving and searching systems.
Discussion of this memo should take place on the ietf@ietf.org
mailing list.
2. List Search and Archive Requirements
2.1. Search and Browsing
o The system must provide a web interface for search and browsing
archived messages.
o The system must allow browsing the entire archive of a given list
by thread or by date.
o The system must allow browsing the results of a search by thread
or by date.
Both threading based on Message-Id/References/In-Reply-To and
threading based on same subject line (modulo short prefixes
like re: and fwd:) shoul dbe taken into account.
o The system must allow searching across any subset of the archived
lists (one list, a selection of lists, or all lists).
o The system must allow searching of any combination (using AND and
OR operators) of the following attributes. Richer search
capabilites are highly desirable.
- string occurring in sender name
- date range
- string occurring in Subject
- string occurring in message body
- string occuring in message header (in particular, exact match
of Message-Id)
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For instance, it would be nice to search the entire archive
for instances of a message with a given Message-ID with a
URL like <http://datatracker.ietf.org/mlarchive/
msg?id=4EA6E023.6010603@nostrum.com>
o Individual messages must be representable by a long-term stable
URI that can be shared between users. That is, the URI must be
suitable for reference in an email message.
o Searches should be representable by a URI that can be shared
between users
- Such URIs should be long-term stable.
- The search may be re-executed when the URI is referenced. It
is acceptable for the same URI to produce different results if
accessed at different times (reflecting additional messages
that may match the search criteria for example.)
2.2. IMAP access
Many participants would prefer to access the list archives using IMAP
[RFC3501]. Providing this access while meeting the following
requirements will likely require an IMAP server with specialized
capabilities.
o The system should expose the archive using an IMAP interface, with
each list represented as a mailbox.
o This interface must work with standard IMAP clients.
o The interface should allow users to each have their own read/
unread marks for messages. Allowing other annotation is
desirable.
- If this requires the user to login, the system should use
datatracker login credentials
o The interface must have server-side searching enabled, and should
support multiple simultaneous extensive searches.
2.3. Archiving Active Lists
o The archive system must accept messages handled by various mail
reflector packages.
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- Lists hosted on the IETF systems are served by mailman
[mailman].
- Lists hosted at other organizations may use other packages.
* The archive system must accept messages through subscribing
to such an external list.
* The archive system may support other mechanisms for
accepting messages into the archive
2.4. Importing Messages from Other Archives
Lists hosted at other systems are sometimes moved to the IETF
servers, and their archive is moved with them. The archiving system
must be able to import these archives.
o At a minimum the archive system must be able to import mbox
formatted archives [RFC4155][mbox].
o The archive system should be able to import maildir and maildir-
like (the key characteristic being on-message-per-file) formatted
archives [maildir].
o It is acceptable to use a separate utility to convert between
these formats before import as long as the conversion is lossless
2.5. Exporting messages from the Archives
o The archive system must support exporting messages in the mbox
format
o The archive system should support exporting messages in mailder
format
o The archive system must support exporting the entire archive of a
given list
o The archive system must support exporting all messages from a
given list within a given daterange
o The archive system should allow exporting the results of any
supported search query
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2.6. Redundancy
o The systems must facilitate providing archive, search, and browse
functions through geographically distributed servers
- The systems must support a single active an dsingle standby
server. This reflects the current operating configuration and
is expected to be the initial deployment model.
- The systems should support a single active and multiple standby
servers.
- The systems should support multiple active servers for the
search and browse functions. Multiple active archive servers
are not a requirement.
- The amount of data replication between servers should be on the
order of the size of any new/changed messages in the archives.
* It is acceptable for replication to be part of the archival
system itself (such as using the replication mechanisms from
an underlying database).
* It is acceptable to rely on replication of the underlying
filesystem objects (using rsync of one or more directory
trees for example), but only if the objects in the
underlying filesystem are formatted such that the size of
the replication data is on the order of the size of any new/
changed messages in the archives.
2.7. Archive Administration
o The archive system must support adding and removing lists to be
archived
o The system must allow the administrator to add messages to and
delete messages from an archived list. The system should log such
actions.
o The system must allow the administrator to delete messages from an
archived list
2.8. Transition Requirements
There are many existing archived messages containing embedded links
into the existing MHonArc mail archive. These links must continue to
work, but should reach the message as archived in the new system.
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3. Future Considerations
The archive and search functions should anticipate internationalized
email addresses as discussed in the EAI working group. Since the EAI
WG has not finished their work, there is no firm requirement at this
time.
4. Security Considerations
Creating a new tool for searching and archiving IETF email lists does
not affect the security of the Internet in any significant fashion.
5. IANA Considerations
This document has no actions for IANA.
6. Acknowledgements
The Tools Development team provided input into this initial
brainstorm. Text suggestions from Alexey Melnikov and Pete Resnick
have been incorporated.
7. Changelog
7.1. 00 to 01
1. Requested ability to import maildir-like archives, not just
maildir proper
2. Added a section requesting IMAP access to the archive.
8. Informative References
[RFC3501] Crispin, M., "INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION
4rev1", RFC 3501, March 2003.
[RFC4155] Hall, E., "The application/mbox Media Type", RFC 4155,
September 2005.
[maildir] "Maildir", <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maildir>.
[mailman] "Mailman", <http://www.list.org/>.
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[mbox] "Mbox", <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbox>.
Author's Address
Robert Sparks
Tekelec
17210 Campbell Road
Suite 250
Dallas, Texas 75254-4203
USA
Email: RjS@nostrum.com
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