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IETF RFC 6533
Last modified on Friday, February 17th, 2012
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) T. Hansen, Ed.
Request for Comments: 6533 AT&T Laboratories
Obsoletes: 5337 C. Newman
Updates: 3461, 3464, 3798, 6522 Oracle
Category: Standards Track A. Melnikov
ISSN: 2070-1721 Isode Ltd
February 2012
Internationalized Delivery Status and Disposition Notifications
 Abstract
Delivery status notifications (DSNs) are critical to the correct
operation of an email system. However, the existing Draft Standards
(RFC 3461, RFC 3464, RFC 6522) are presently limited to 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-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 3464, RFC 3798, and RFC 6522.
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6533.
Hansen, et al. Standards Track PAGE 1 
RFC 6533 Internationalized DSN and MDNs February 2012
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.3. The message/global-headers Media Type . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.4. Using These Media Types with multipart/report . . . . . . 8
4.5. Additional Requirements on SMTP Servers . . . . . . . . . 9
5. UTF-8 Message Disposition Notifications . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.1. UTF-8 Mail Address Type Registration . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.2. Update to 'smtp' Diagnostic Type Registration . . . . . . 11
6.3. message/global-headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.4. message/global-delivery-status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.5. message/global-disposition-notification . . . . . . . . . 14
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Appendix A. Changes since RFC 5337 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Appendix B. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Hansen, et al. Standards Track PAGE 2
RFC 6533 Internationalized DSN and MDNs February 2012
1. Introduction
When an email message is transmitted using the SMTPUTF8 [RFC 6531]
extension and Internationalized Email Headers [RFC 6532], it is
sometimes necessary to return that message or generate a Message
Disposition Notification (MDN) [RFC 3798]. 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 [RFC 5337].
Section 6 of [RFC 6530] 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 [RFC 2119].
The formal syntax uses the Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF)
[RFC 5234] notation including the core rules defined in Appendix B of
[RFC 5234] and the UTF-8 syntax rules in Section 4 of [RFC 3629].
3. UTF-8 Address Type
"An Extensible Message Format for Delivery Status Notifications"
[RFC 3464] defines the concept of an address type. The address format
introduced in "Internationalized Email Headers" [RFC 6532] 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 [RFC 5321] server that advertises both the SMTPUTF8 extension
[RFC 6531] and the DSN extension [RFC 3461] MUST accept a UTF-8 address
type in the ORCPT parameter including 8-bit UTF-8 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 SMTPUTF8.
Hansen, et al. Standards Track PAGE 3
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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
ASCII characters [ASCII]).
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:
1. in the ORCPT parameter when the SMTP server doesn't advertise
support for SMTPUTF8 (utf-8-addr-xtext MUST be used instead); or
2. if the SMTP server supports SMTPUTF8, but the address contains
ASCII characters not permitted in the ORCPT parameter (e.g., the
ORCPT parameter forbids unencoded SP and the '=' character),
(either utf-8-addr-unitext or utf-8-addr-xtext MUST be used
instead); or
3. in a 7-bit transport environment including a message/
delivery-status "Original-Recipient:" or "Final-Recipient:"
field, (utf-8-addr-xtext MUST be used instead).
The utf-8-address form MAY be used in the ORCPT parameter when the
SMTP server also advertises support for SMTPUTF8 and the address
doesn't contain any 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 [RFC 3798] if the message is a
SMTPUTF8 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 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 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 [RFC 3461], as any ASCII characters that need to
be escaped using xtext encoding never appear in any unitext-encoded
string. When sending data to a SMTPUTF8-capable server, native UTF-8
characters SHOULD be used instead of the EmbeddedUnicodeChar syntax
described below. When sending data to an SMTP server that does not
advertise SMTPUTF8, then the EmbeddedUnicodeChar syntax MUST be used
instead of UTF-8.
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When the ORCPT parameter is placed in a message/
global-delivery-status "Original-Recipient:" field, the
utf-8-addr-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
SMTPUTF8 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 [RFC 5234], in Section 4 of [RFC 3629], or in
[RFC 3464].
utf-8-type-addr = "utf-8;" utf-8-enc-addr
utf-8-address = Mailbox
; Mailbox as defined in [RFC 6531].
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 [RFC 3461]
; parameter even when SMTPUTF8 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 [RFC 3461]
; parameter when SMTPUTF8 SMTP extension
; is also advertised.
QCHAR = %x21-2a / %x2c-3c / %x3e-5b / %x5d-7e
; ASCII printable characters except
; CTLs, SP, '\', '+', '='.
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QUCHAR = QCHAR / UTF8-2 / UTF8-3 / UTF8-4
; ASCII printable characters except
; CTLs, SP, '\', '+' and '=', plus
; other Unicode characters encoded in UTF-8
EmbeddedUnicodeChar = %x5C.78 "{" HEXPOINT "}"
; 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 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 [RFC 3464] comes in a
three-part multipart/report [RFC 6522] 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/RFC 822) or header (text/RFC 822-headers)
return. As the present standard DSN format does not permit the
return of undeliverable SMTPUTF8 messages, three new media types have
been defined. ([RFC 5337] 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 SMTPUTF8 [RFC 6531]; the "Diagnostic-Code:" field SHOULD
be in i-default language [RFC 2277]. Second, systems generating a
message/global-delivery-status body part SHOULD use the utf-8-address
Hansen, et al. Standards Track PAGE 6
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form of the UTF-8 address type for all addresses containing
characters outside the 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
instance includes a language tag [RFC 5646] 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 [RFC 5234], in Section 4 of [RFC 3629], or in
[RFC 3464]. Note that <text-fixed> is the same as <text> from
[RFC 5322], but without <obs-text>. If or when RFC 5322 is updated to
disallow <obs-text>, <text-fixed> should become just <text>. Also,
if or when RFC 5322 is updated to disallow control characters in
<text>, <text-fixed> should become a reference to that update
instead.
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.
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generic-address =/ utf-8-enc-addr
; Only allowed with the "utf-8" address-type.
; Updates Section 3.2.3 of RFC 3798.
;
; 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 [RFC 5646].
extension-field =/ extension-field-name ":" *utf8-text
; Updates Section 7 of RFC 3798
text-fixed = %d1-9 / ; Any 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
4.2. The message/global Media Type
The second type, used for returning the content, is message/global,
which is similar to message/RFC 822, except it contains a message with
UTF-8 headers. This media type is described in [RFC 6532].
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 SMTPUTF8 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 [RFC 6522] container is
concerned, message/global-delivery-status, message/global, and
message/global-headers MUST be treated as equivalent to message/
delivery-status, message/RFC 822, and text/RFC 822-headers. That is,
Hansen, et al. Standards Track PAGE 8
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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 a 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 [RFC 6532] relaxed a restriction from MIME [RFC 2046]
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 SMTPUTF8 and DSN needs to
return an undeliverable SMTPUTF8 message, then it has two choices for
encapsulating the SMTPUTF8 message when generating the corresponding
multipart/report:
If the return-path SMTP server does not support SMTPUTF8, then the
undeliverable body part and headers MUST be encoded using a 7-bit
Content-Transfer-Encoding such as "base64" or "quoted-printable"
[RFC 2045], as detailed in Section 4.
Otherwise, "8bit" Content-Transfer-Encoding can be used.
5. UTF-8 Message Disposition Notifications
Message Disposition Notifications [RFC 3798] 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
Hansen, et al. Standards Track PAGE 9
RFC 6533 Internationalized DSN and MDNs February 2012
language [RFC 2277].) 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 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.
; 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 have been registered as a result of this
document.
6.1. UTF-8 Mail Address Type Registration
The mail address type registry was created by [RFC 3464]. The
registration template response follows:
(a) The address-type name.
UTF-8
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(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 ASCII repertoire, a specification for how
they are to be encoded as graphic ASCII characters in an
"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.
6.2. Update to 'smtp' Diagnostic Type Registration
The mail diagnostic type registry was created by [RFC 3464] and
updated by [RFC 5337]. This specification replaces [RFC 5337]. The
registration for the 'smtp' diagnostic type has been updated to
reference RFC 6533 in addition to [RFC 3464] and to remove the
reference to [RFC 5337].
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 [RFC 6532] 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-printable content transfer
encoding.
Security considerations: See Section 7.
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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 down-convert this
media type to the text/RFC 822-header media type, such conversion
is discouraged as it loses information.
Published specification: RFC 6533
Applications that use this media type: SMTPUTF8 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
6.4. message/global-delivery-status
Type name: message
Subtype name: global-delivery-status
Required parameters: none
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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 6533
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
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
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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 6533
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".
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.
Hansen, et al. Standards Track PAGE 14
RFC 6533 Internationalized DSN and MDNs February 2012
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 [RFC 3629] apply.
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RFC 6533 Internationalized DSN and MDNs February 2012
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[ASCII] American National Standards Institute (formerly United
States of America Standards Institute), "USA Code for
Information Interchange", ANSI X3.4-1968, 1968.
ANSI X3.4-1968 has been replaced by newer versions with
slight modifications, but the 1968 version remains
definitive for the Internet.
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC 2277] Alvestrand, H., "IETF Policy on Character Sets and
Languages", BCP 18, RFC 2277, January 1998.
[RFC 3461] Moore, K., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) Service
Extension for Delivery Status Notifications (DSNs)",
RFC 3461, January 2003.
[RFC 3464] Moore, K. and G. Vaudreuil, "An Extensible Message Format
for Delivery Status Notifications", RFC 3464,
January 2003.
[RFC 3629] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, November 2003.
[RFC 3798] Hansen, T. and G. Vaudreuil, "Message Disposition
Notification", RFC 3798, May 2004.
[RFC 5234] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008.
[RFC 5321] Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 5321,
October 2008.
[RFC 5322] Resnick, P., Ed., "Internet Message Format", RFC 5322,
October 2008.
[RFC 5646] Phillips, A. and M. Davis, "Tags for Identifying
Languages", BCP 47, RFC 5646, September 2009.
[RFC 6522] Kucherawy, M., Ed., "The Multipart/Report Media Type for
the Reporting of Mail System Administrative Messages", STD
73, RFC 6522, January 2012.
Hansen, et al. Standards Track PAGE 16
RFC 6533 Internationalized DSN and MDNs February 2012
[RFC 6530] Klensin, J. and Y. Ko, "Overview and Framework for
Internationalized Email", RFC 6530, February 2012.
[RFC 6531] Yao, J. and W. Mao, "SMTP Extension for Internationalized
Email", RFC 6531, February 2012.
[RFC 6532] Yang, A., Steele, S., and N. Freed, "Internationalized
Email Headers", RFC 6532, February 2012.
8.2. Informative References
[RFC 2045] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message
Bodies", RFC 2045, November 1996.
[RFC 2046] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types", RFC 2046,
November 1996.
[RFC 5337] Newman, C. and A. Melnikov, "Internationalized Delivery
Status and Disposition Notifications", RFC 5337,
September 2008.
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Appendix A. Changes since RFC 5337
Changes were made 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 the reflections of the ABNF
changes in [RFC 6531].
Fixed description of utf-8-addr-xtext and utf-8-addr-unitext.
References to Downgrade and uMailbox removed/fixed.
ABNF changes and fixed errata submitted 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 working group to
help solidify this proposal.
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RFC 6533 Internationalized DSN and MDNs February 2012
Authors' Addresses
Tony Hansen (editor)
AT&T Laboratories
200 Laurel Ave.
Middletown, NJ 07748
US
EMail: tony+eaidsn@maillennium.att.com
Chris Newman
Oracle
800 Royal Oaks
Monrovia, CA 91016-6347
US
EMail: chris.newman@oracle.com
Alexey Melnikov
Isode Ltd
5 Castle Business Village
36 Station Road
Hampton, Middlesex TW12 2BX
UK
EMail: Alexey.Melnikov@isode.com
Hansen, et al. Standards Track PAGE 19
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 37990 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Friday, February 17th, 2012
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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