Commit bf99501b bf99501b3d3dcf39754e68b242383e574533b5a8 by Sam Roberts

Added RFCs related to delivery and message status notification.

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7 Network Working Group G. Vaudreuil
8 Request for Comments: 1892 Octel Network Services
9 Category: Standards Track January 1996
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12 The Multipart/Report Content Type
13 for the Reporting of
14 Mail System Administrative Messages
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16 Status of this Memo
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18 This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
19 Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
20 improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
21 Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
22 and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
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24 1. The Multipart/Report MIME content-type
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26 The Multipart/Report MIME content-type is a general "family" or
27 "container" type for electronic mail reports of any kind. Although
28 this memo defines only the use of the Multipart/Report content-type
29 with respect to delivery status reports, mail processing programs
30 will benefit if a single content-type is used to for all kinds of
31 reports.
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33 The Multipart/Report content-type is defined as follows:
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35 MIME type name: multipart
36 MIME subtype name: report
37 Required parameters: boundary, report-type
38 Optional parameters: none
39 Encoding considerations: 7bit should always be adequate
40 Security considerations: see section 4 of this memo.
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42 The syntax of Multipart/Report is identical to the Multipart/Mixed
43 content type defined in [MIME]. When used to send a report, the
44 Multipart/Report content-type must be the top-level MIME content type
45 for any report message. The report-type parameter identifies the
46 type of report. The parameter is the MIME content sub-type of the
47 second body part of the Multipart/Report.
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49 User agents and gateways must be able to automatically determine
50 that a message is a mail system report and should be processed as
51 such. Placing the Multipart/Report as the outermost content
52 provides a mechanism whereby an auto-processor may detect through
53 parsing the RFC 822 headers that the message is a report.
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58 Vaudreuil Standards Track [Page 1]
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60 RFC 1892 Multipart/Report January 1996
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63 The Multipart/Report content-type contains either two or three sub-
64 parts, in the following order:
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66 (1) [required] The first body part contains human readable message.
67 The purpose of this message is to provide an easily-understood
68 description of the condition(s) that caused the report to be
69 generated, for a human reader who may not have an user agent
70 capable of interpreting the second section of the
71 Multipart/Report.
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73 The text in the first section may be in any MIME standards-track
74 content-type, charset, or language. Where a description of the
75 error is desired in several languages or several media, a
76 Multipart/Alternative construct may be used.
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78 This body part may also be used to send detailed information
79 that cannot be easily formatted into a Message/Report body part.
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81 (2) [required] A machine parsable body part containing an account
82 of the reported message handling event. The purpose of this body
83 part is to provide a machine-readable description of the
84 condition(s) which caused the report to be generated, along with
85 details not present in the first body part that may be useful to
86 human experts. An initial body part, Message/delivery-status is
87 defined in [DSN]
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89 (3) [optional] A body part containing the returned message or a
90 portion thereof. This information may be useful to aid human
91 experts in diagnosing problems. (Although it may also be useful
92 to allow the sender to identify the message which the report was
93 issued, it is hoped that the envelope-id and original-recipient-
94 address returned in the Message/Report body part will replace
95 the traditional use of the returned content for this purpose.)
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97 Return of content may be wasteful of network bandwidth and a variety
98 of implementation strategies can be used. Generally the sender
99 should choose the appropriate strategy and inform the recipient of
100 the required level of returned content required. In the absence of
101 an explicit request for level of return of content such as that
102 provided in [DRPT], the agent which generated the delivery service
103 report should return the full message content.
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105 When data not encoded in 7 bits is to be returned, and the return
106 path is not guaranteed to be 8-bit capable, two options are
107 available. The origional message MAY be reencoded into a legal 7 bit
108 MIME message or the Text/RFC822-Headers content-type MAY be used to
109 return only the origional message headers.
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114 Vaudreuil Standards Track [Page 2]
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116 RFC 1892 Multipart/Report January 1996
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119 2. The Text/RFC822-Headers MIME content-type
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121 The Text/RFC822-Headers MIME content-type provides a mechanism to
122 label and return only the RFC 822 headers of a failed message. These
123 headers are not the complete message and should not be returned as a
124 Message/RFC822. The returned headers are useful for identifying the
125 failed message and for diagnostics based on the received: lines.
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127 The Text/RFC822-Headers content-type is defined as follows:
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129 MIME type name: Text
130 MIME subtype name: RFC822-Headers
131 Required parameters: None
132 Optional parameters: none
133 Encoding considerations: 7 bit is sufficient for normal RFC822
134 headers, however, if the headers are broken and require
135 encoding, they may be encoded in quoted-printable.
136 Security considerations: see section 4 of this memo.
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138 The Text/RFC822-headers body part should contain all the RFC822
139 header lines from the message which caused the report. The RFC822
140 headers include all lines prior to the blank line in the message.
141 They include the MIME-Version and MIME Content- headers.
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143 3. References
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145 [DSN] Moore, K., and G. Vaudreuil, "An Extensible Message Format for
146 Delivery Status Notifications", RFC 1894, University of
147 Tennessee, Octel Network Services, January 1996.
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149 [RFC822] Crocker, D., "Standard for the format of ARPA Internet Text
150 Messages", STD 11, RFC 822, UDEL, August 1982.
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152 [MIME] Borenstein, N., and N. Freed, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
153 Extensions", RFC 1521, Bellcore, Innosoft, June 1992.
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155 [DRPT] Moore, K., "SMTP Service Extension for Delivery Status
156 Notifications", RFC 1891, University of Tennessee, January 1996.
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158 4. Security Considerations
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160 Automated use of report types without authentication presents several
161 security issues. Forging negative reports presents the opportunity
162 for denial-of-service attacks when the reports are used for automated
163 maintenance of directories or mailing lists. Forging positive
164 reports may cause the sender to incorrectly believe a message was
165 delivered when it was not.
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170 Vaudreuil Standards Track [Page 3]
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172 RFC 1892 Multipart/Report January 1996
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175 5. Author's Address
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177 Gregory M. Vaudreuil
178 Octel Network Services
179 17060 Dallas Parkway
180 Dallas, TX 75248-1905
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182 Phone: +1-214-733-2722
183 EMail: Greg.Vaudreuil@Octel.com
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